LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

RECEIVED    BY    EXCHANGE 


Class 


U be  Tantverefts  of  Gbfcago 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.   ROCKEFELLER 


THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  TO  THE 

FOURTH  GOSPEL:  ITS  EXTENT, 

MEANING,  AND  VALUE 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY  OF    THE    DIVINITY    SCHOOL    IN  CANDIDACY 
FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT) 


BY 

FRANK  GRANT  LEWIS 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1908 


1 


Ube  mntverstts  of  dbtcago 

FOUNDED   BY  JOHN   D.    ROCKEFELLER 


THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  TO  THE 

FOURTH  GOSPEL:  ITS  EXTENT, 

MEANING,  AND  VALUE 


A  DISSERTATION 
SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY  OF    THE    DIVINITY    SCHOOL    IN  CANDIDACY 

FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
(DEPARTMENT  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT) 


BY 
FRANK  GRANT  LEWIS 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1908 


COPYRIGHT  1908  BY 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


Published  July  1908 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


OF  THE 

(UNIVERSITY 


PREFACE 

The  reader  will  observe  the  narrow  limits  of  the  following  discussion. 
It  makes  no  claims  to  grappling  with  "the  Johannine  Problem,"  nor  with 
the  general  problem  of  the  fourth  gospel  alone,  nor  even  with  the  single 
question  of  the  authorship  of  the  fourth  gospel.  I  have  simply  set  myself 
the  task  of  discovering  what  the  testimony  of  Irenaeus  to  the  fourth  gospel 
is  and  of  estimating  its  significance.  My  essay,  therefore,  deals  with  only 
one  aspect  of  the  problems  mentioned  above.  That  it  is  an  important  aspect, 
however,  will  not  be  denied.  Even  when  the  study  of  Irenaeus  leads  to 
an  elimination  of  his  testimony  from  the  factors  which  have  to  do  with 
the  Johannine  question,  as  the  study  of  Harnack  did,  the  study  is  recognized 
as  essential  and  significant. 

That  the  question  of  the  significance  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  is  a 
mooted  one  cannot  be  evaded.  When  Ernest  F.  Scott,  one  of  the  latest 
and  most  suggestive  writers  on  the  fourth  gospel,  in  the  preface  of  The 
Fourth  Gospel:  Its  Purpose  and  Theology,  says:  "It  may  be  granted  that 
the  external  evidence  is  not  sufficient  to  warrant  a  decisive  verdict  on  either 
side,"  the  situation  appears  to  be  hopeless.  He  was  undoubtedly  influ- 
enced by  the  immense  difference  in  the  conclusions  of  Lightfoot,  Harnack, 
Bacon,  and  Zahn,  in  view  of  which  it  might  seem  that  nothing  more  can  be 
said.  The  very  diversity  of  their  conclusions,  however,  raises  the  question 
whether  some  more  common  and  more  tenable  ground  may  not  be  dis- 
covered. This  is  to  be  done,  nevertheless,  not  by  a  mere  combination  of 
these  important  views,  but  by  a  fresh  examination  of  all  the  data  involved. 
Such  an  examination  I  have  endeavored  to  make. 

The  crucial  question  is :  Did  Irenaeus  have  actual  knowledge  of  Chris- 
tian affairs  in  Asia  at  the  close  of  the  first  century  ?  If  this  essay  makes 
any  contribution  toward  answering  this  question,  it  is  through  a  more 
careful  criticism  and  evaluation  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  attributed  to 
Polycarp  and  the  presbyters,  as  it  bears  upon  that  question,  than  has  been 
made  heretofore. 

In  view  of  the  present  condition  of  the  text  of  Irenaeus,  nothing  more 
practical  appeared  possible  than  to  use  the  Stieren  text  without  criticism. 
This  could  be  done  with  the  less  hesitation  because,  as  the  discussion 
endeavors  to  show,  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  to 
the  fourth  gospel  must  be  found  in  a  more  general  interpretation  than  that 
which  bases  its  conclusions  on  mere  variation  of  text.  No  theory  can  be 
455]  5 


178187 


6  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

secure  which  hinges  on  uncertain,  or  conjectural,  readings.  Fortunately 
there  appears  opportunity  for  a  theory  in  which  such  readings  may  largely 
be  disregarded. 

I  have  freely  laid  under  tribute  all  available  works  which  offered  assis- 
tance. This  puts  me  under  obligation  to  many  for  whose  suggestions  only 
this  general  acknowledgment  can  be  made.  I  am  grateful  to  all.  I  am 
particularly  indebted  to  Professor  Ernest  DeWitt  Burton  and  to  the 
researches  of  a  seminar  conducted  by  him  in  The  University  of  Chicago 
during  the  autumn  of  1906,  in  which  the  entire  field  of  the  external  evidence 
to  the  authorship  of  the  fourth  gospel  was  patiently  examined.  If  I  have 
here  succeeded  in  going  beyond  that  study  and  finding  what,  until  now, 
has  been  overlooked  in  Irenaeus,  this  is  largely  due  to  the  suggestive  criti- 
cisms of  Professor  Burton  which  were  received  in  that  seminar  and  others 
which  he  has  given  in  the  preparation  of  this  dissertation  itself.  I  need 
hardly  add  that  it  has  been  a  personal  pleasure  to  have  my  independent 
study  work  out  in  accord  with  his  "booklet"  theory  of  the  composition  of 

the  gospel. 

FRANK  GRANT  LEWIS 
NOVEMBER,  1907 


456 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  TO  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  9 

Table  showing  extent  from  point  of  view  of  the  gospel. — Inferences  from 
this  table. — Table  showing  extent  from  point  of  view  of  the  progress  of 
Irenaeus'  work. — Inferences  from  this. — Conclusion 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  FOR  IRENAEUS     ....        17 
The  gospel  the  work  of  John  of  late  apostolic  times. — Irenaeus  knew 
only  one  John,  other  than  John  the  Baptist  and  John  Mark,  of  apostolic 
times. — The  writer  of  the  gospel  an  apostle. — Irenaeus'  usage  of  the 
word  "apostle." — The  writer  of  the  gospel  the  son  of  Zebedee 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  FOR  Us  ....  24 
Irenaeus  not  critical. — Irenaeus'  relation  to  Polycarp. — Trustworthiness 
of  the  letter  to  Victor. — Trustworthiness  of  the  letter  to  Florinus. — Here- 
sies 3.3.4. — The  meaning  of  the  Polycarp  testimony  concerning  the 
John  of  Asia. — Concerning  the  Johannine  writings  in  the  time  of  Poly- 
carp.— Application  of  this  conclusion  to  Heresies  3 .  i .  ic  and  to  3 .  n .  ia. 
— Irenaeus'  relation  to  the  presbyters  and  other  unnamed  men. — Con- 
clusions of  Lightfoot,  Harnack,  and  Zahn. — Further  investigation  of  the 
data. — The  presbyter  material  was  oral 

CONCLUSION 57 

APPENDIX:   RESULTING  HYPOTHESIS  FOR  THE  JOHANNINE  QUESTIONS  .  61 

INDEX  OF  NAMES  AND  SUBJECTS 63 

INDEX  OF  IRENAEUS  REFERENCES 64 

INDEX  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEXTS 64 


457] 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  TO  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

The  extent  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  to  the  fourth  gospel  is  in  itself 
significant.  What  that  extent  is  may  be  seen  from  the  following  tables. 

The  first  table  is  an  arrangement  of  the  references  to  the  testimony 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  gospel.  It  serves  especially  to  show  how 
much  of  the  gospel  Irenaeus  used,  what  parts  were  of  particular  interest 
to  him,  and,  indirectly,  the  portions  which  he  did  not  use. 

The  second  table  is  an  arrangement  of  the  same  references  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Irenaeus'  work.  It  calls  attention  particularly  to  his 
attitude  toward  the  gospel  as  that  attitude  is  to  be  seen  at  different  stages 
of  the  progress  of  his  discussion. 

The  tables  are  intended  to  present  the  references  and,  at  the  same  time,  to 
offer  some  interpretation  of  the  testimony  to  which  the  references  direct.  In 
order  to  make  such  interpretation,  certain  abbreviations  and  symbols  are  employed. 
These  are  of  three  classes: 

i.    Those  which  precede  the  references  to  the  gospel.     Here — 
No  symbol  =  an  exact  quotation. 

v=a  quotation  varying  merely  verbally  from  the  Westcott  and 

Hort  text,  and  so  not  materially  affecting  the  sense. 
s=a  quotation  varying  from  the  WH  text  in  sense  as  well  as 

verbally. 
r=any  looser  reference,  not  a  quotation. 

By  an  "exact"  quotation  is  meant,  where  the  Greek  is  preserved,  an  agree- 
ment with  the  WH  text;  where  we  have  only  the  Latin,  a  Latin  reading  which 
seems  to  represent  the  WH  text.  In  some  instances  indicated  as  "exact"  quota- 
tion, however,  only  a  part  of  the  verse,  or  verses,  of  the  gospel  as  referred  to  is 
quoted;  but  the  quotation  is  "exact"  as  far  as  it  is  used,  even  when,  as  in  some 
passages,  words  of  interpretation  are  fused  with  the  quotations  (e.  g.,  4. 25. 36). x 

It  may  be  added  that  Irenaeus  often  used  language  which  is  colored  by  the 
influence  of  the  gospel  but  which  does  not  show  a  sufficient  number  of  the  words 
of  the  gospel  to  warrant  calling  it  even  a  "reference."  His  language  received 
such  coloring  from  the  thought  of  the  prologue  especially.  But  the  prologue  was 
the  part  of  the  gospel  which  he  liked  particularly  to  quote.  In  view  of  this;  there 
is  less  occasion  to  attempt  to  include  among  the  references  every  passage  which 
indicates  even  a  coloring  from  the  gospel. 

Still  further,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  these  tables  do  not  include  such  passages 
1  All  references  are  to  the  Adversus  Haereses,  unless  otherwise  indicated. 
459]  9 


10  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

in  Irenaeus  as  mention  the  name  of  John  but  mention  it  without  making  a  quota  - 
tion  from  the  gospel  or  a  reference  to  it  (e.  g.,  i.  9.  16). 

2.  The  abbreviations  between  the  references  to  the  gospel  and  those  to  Ire- 
naeus, showing  the  authorities  to  which  Irenaeus  attributed  the  portions  of  the 
gospel  indicated  by  the  references  preceding  them.     Here — 

Ap=  Apostle  JA=John  (apostle,  as  shown  by  context) 

C  =  Christ  JD  =  John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord 

DL  =  Disciple  of  the  Lord  L  =Lord 

G = Gospel  S  =  Son  of  God 

GJ  =  Gospel  according  to  John    Sc  =  Scripture 
J  =  John  W  =  Word  of  God,  or  Word 

References  not  accompanied  by  any  of  these  abbreviations  indicate  passages 
of  the  gospel  which  are  either  introduced  without  any  external  authority  or  those 
which  are  introduced  with  an  authority  of  such  indefinite  kind  as  to  make  it  of 
no  considerable  value. 

The  John  indicated  by  the  abbreviation  JA  is  not  to  be  understood  as  distin- 
guished from  the  John  indicated  by  the  J  alone.  Frequently  the  passage  com- 
bines the  two  in  such  manner  as  to  leave  no  doubt  that  the  two  are  one.  The 
separate  indication  of  those  passages  of  the  gospel  which  are,  by  the  context, 
attributed  to  an  apostle  is  merely  for  the  convenience  of  reference  in  study.  It 
is  to  be  understood,  also,  that  these  are  not  the  only  passages  which,  as  the  context 
shows,  are  to  be  attributed  to  an  apostle  (cf.  pp.  18-20). 

3.  The  abbreviations  following  the  references  to  Irenaeus.     Here — 

a  advises  the  reader  that  the  passage  of  the  gospel  indicated  in  the  first  column 
will  be  found  somewhere  within  the  first  third  of  the  section  of  Irenaeus  indicated 
in  the  second  column. 

b  refers  similarly  to  the  second  third  of  a  section. 

c  refers  similarly  to  the  last  third  of  a  section. 

This  division  and  notation  has  been  found  convenient  in  the  preparation  of 
the  essay.  Perhaps  it  will  be  equally  convenient  for  any  reader  who  may  wish 
to  examine  the  merits  of  the  discussion  for  himself. 

TABLE  I 

Showing  Irenaeus'  use  of  the  fourth  gospel  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  gospel. 
The  numbers  in  the  first  column  refer  to  the  chapter  and  verse  of  the  gospel; 
those  in  the  second,  to  the  Adversus  Haereses,  except  one  passage  preserved  only 
by  another  writer,  which  is  referred  to  as  "Fr.  35,"  according  to  the  numbering 
of  Stieren. 

Gospel  Irenaeus  Gospel  Irenaeus 

n:i  2.25.3*;  i:i~5  JD  3.11.16 

1:1-2          JD       1.8.50  n:i-i4  J  1.9.20 

1:1-3          GJ       3.11.86  1:3  J  1.8.50 

11:1-3  3.18.10  1:3  Sc  1.22.10 

1:1-3         JD       5.18.26  1:3  JD  2.2.50 

460 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL 


11 


Gospel 

Irenaeus 

Gospel 

Irenaeus 

1:3 

J 

3-8.30 

4:50 

L 

2.22.30 

i:3 

3.2I.I00 

i:3 

G 

4.32.16 

15  :  1-9 

JD 

2.22.30 

si:  6-8 

DL 

3.II.40 

15  :  1-9 

L 

2.23.26 

1:10-11 

J 

3.II.20 

5:i4 

L 

4-36-66 

i  :  10-12 

JD 

5.18.26 

5:i4 

L 

5-15-20 

1:12 

5-18.36 

V5  :  28-29 

L 

5-  13-  ic 

vi:i3 

3.19.20 

V5'  39-40 

J 

4.10.10 

vi  :  13-14 

3.16:2^ 

5:43 

L 

5-25-40 

1:14 

J 

1.8.5* 

V5:46 

Sc 

4.10.10 

1:14 

JA 

1.9.2^ 

55:46-47 

J 

4.2.30 

1:14 

J 

3.10.3^ 

1:14 

G 

3.II.2C 

16:1-13 

JD 

2.22.30 

1:14 

DL 

3.H.3C 

r6:n 

L 

3.11.56 

1:14 

4.20.26 

1:14 

J 

5.18.26 

57:30 

3.16.76 

vi  :  15-16 

J 

3.10.36 

r?:  38-39 

5.18.20 

si:i8 

3.11.60 

n:i8 

4.6.5C 

v8:34 

L 

3.  8.  ic 

51:18 

G 

4  .  20  .  6c 

8:36 

S 

3.19.10 

si:i8 

L 

4.20.110 

58:44 

L 

5.22.2C 

1:29 

J 

3.10.36 

8:44 

L 

5-23-  2C 

11:29 

J 

3-IQ.3C 

8:56 

C 

4  •  5  •  30 

1:47,49 

3.11.60 

18:56 

4  •  5  •  50 

vi  -.50 

L 

4.9.20 

18:56 

4.7.10 

8:56-57 

L 

2.22.60 

12:1-11 

JD 

2.22.30 

8:58 

W 

4.I3.4C 

12:1-11 

3.11.50 

2:4 

L 

3.16.70 

19:1-42 

2.I7.9C 

V2:i9-2i 

L 

5.6.26 

9:3 

L 

5.15.26 

V2:23 

JD 

2.22.30 

59:7 

5-*5-3c 

V2:25 

3-9-3c 

111:1-57 

JD 

2.22.36 

V3:5 

L 

Fr.  35 

11:25 

L 

4-5-2C 

3:18-21 

L 

5.27.  2C 

111:35 

3.22.2C 

V3^6 

4-37-5& 

111:39 

5-I3-I0 

11:43-44 

5.I3-I6 

14:1-54 

JD 

2.22.30 

4:6 

JD 

3.22.26 

112:1-19 

JD 

2.22.3C 

14:14 

S 

4.36.40 

512:27 

L 

I.8.2C 

4:35-38 

L 

4.23.10 

112:32 

4.2.7*; 

4:37 

4-2S-3& 

4:41-42 

4.2.70 

113:1-30 

JD 

2.22.3C 

461 


12 


HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 


Gospel 

ri3:5 


W 


Irenaeus 
4.22.10 


114:2 

3.I9-3C 

VI4'.2 

L 

5.36.20 

114:6 

Ap 

3-5-10 

vi4:6~7 

L 

4  •  7  •  3C 

514:7,  9-10 

L 

3.13.20 

14:11 

L 

5.18.16 

114:16 

JA 

3.11.90 

14:28 

L 

2  .  28  .  8C 

ri5:9 

3  .20.26 

vi5:i5 

L 

4.13.46 

15:16 

L 

4.14.16 

3.17.20 


Gospe 


118:37 
19:11 

119:18 
ri9--34 
ri9^34 
"9:34 

520:17 

r20 : 20 

T20 : 20 

120:24 

520:31 


Irenaeus 
4. I4. 1C 

i .  6 . 46 

4.18.3* 
4.21.30 

2.22.3C 
3-22.2C 

4-33-2C 

4.35.3' 

5.31-1' 
5.7.10 

i.i8.3C 
3.16.56 


17:5  W        4.14.10  V2i:2o  JD       3. i. ic 

117:12  L         2.20.56  121:20  J          4.20.116 

A  study  of  the  above  table  offers  some  considerations  which  are  worthy 
of  special  attention  as  indicating  the  use  which  Irenaeus  made  of  the  gospel. 

1.  The  student  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  the  pro- 
logue possessed  an  apparently  undue  place  in  the  thinking  of  Irenaeus. 
More  than  one-fourth  of  the  use  which  he  made  of  the  gospel  was  quota- 
tion from  the  prologue  or  reference  to  it.     If  the  influence  of  the  prologue 
which  is  to  be  seen  in  the  mere  "coloring"  of  Irenaeus'  language  (cf.  p.  9) 
without  any  specific  "reference"  were  to  be  taken  into  account,  this  dis- 
proportionate attention  to  the  prologue  would  be  increased.     His  large 
use  of  the  prologue  may  indicate  his  estimation  of  it  as  compared  with 
other  portions  of  the  gospel.      Or,  he  may  have  employed  it  so  largely 
because  he  regarded  its  statements  as  conclusive  refutations  of  the  theories 
put  forth  by  his  Gnostic  opponents. 

2.  Irenaeus  allowed  himself  a  large  measure  of  freedom  in  making 
quotations  from  the  gospel.     This  is  particularly  true  of  the  quotations 
outside  of  the  prologue.     It  suggests  that  he  usually  quoted  from  memory 
and  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  statements  of  the  gospel  to  which  he  appealed 
were  those  which  he  knew  sufficiently  well  to  recall  without  turning  to  his 
text.     Of  the  115  quotations  from  the  gospel,  or  references  to  it,  which  I 
have  credited  to  Irenaeus,  thirty-nine  or  a  full  third  of  these,  are  merely 
loose  references,  while  the  exact  quotations  are  limited  to  some  twenty- 
seven  different  statements,  and  the  inexact  ones  make  up  the  remainder. 

462 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  13 

Btb^-*- 

If  he  did  turn  to  his  text  at  all,  it  could  hardly  have  been  more  than  occa- 
sionally, when,  e.  g.,  he  wanted  such  a  statement  as  that  of  3: 18-21. 

3.  The  reader  will  observe  the  great  diversity  of  usage  on  the  part  of 
Irenaeus  in  acknowledging  the  source  of  the  material  which  he  employed 
from  the  gospel.     Even  the  thirteen  classes  of  acknowledgments  which  I 
have  enumerated  do  not  exhaust  the  data,  for  the  thirteenth  is  a  varied 
datum  in  itself.    Altogether,  his  usage  is  very  loose.     He  did  not  even  take 
the  trouble  to  advise  his  readers  as  to  whether  his  "John"  was  the  Baptist, 
or  the  Evangelist,  so  that  the  references  to  "John"  in  3.10.3  are  really  to 
the  Baptist,  though  Irenaeus'  general  usage  would  lead  one  to  expect  that 
they  were  to  the  Evangelist.     The  words  which  the  gospel  attributes  to 
Jesus  are  most  often  said  to  be  the  words  of  "the  Lord,"  but  a  variation 
from  this  usage  may  occur  at  any  time.     There  is  considerable  variety  hi 
the  way  in  which  a  single  passage  of  the  gospel  is  used  (e.  g.,  i :  18,  or  8 : 44). 

4.  A  reference  to  the  twenty-first  chapter  is  not  certain.     The  reference 
to  John  as  the  one  who  leaned  on  Jesus'  breast,  in  3 .  i .  ic  and  4 . 20 . 1 16,  is 
better  explained,  however,  from  21 : 20  than  from  13 : 25  and  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  use  of  21 : 20.     No  reference  to  the  tenth  chapter  is  discoverable.     But 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  only  a  few  years  later,  quoted  this  chapter  several 
times  and  made  one  clear  reference  and  partial  quotation  (Paedag.  1.5.10) 
from  the  twenty-first  chapter.     In  view  of  this,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
Irenaeus'  gospel  contained  the  tenth  chapter  and  that  the  reference  to  John 
as  the  one  who  leaned  on  Jesus'  breast  is  a  reference  to  the  twenty-first 
chapter. 

TABLE  II 

Showing  Irenaeus'  use  of  the  gospel  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  progress  of 
his  work.     The  abbreviations  and  symbols  are  the  same  as  in  the  preceding  table. 

Irenaeus  Gospel  Irenaeus  Gospel 

1.6.46  ri8:37  2.22.3(1  JD  12:1-11 

1.8.2$  L  812:27  2.22.3(1  JD  V2:23 

1.8.5(1  JD  1:1-2  2.22.30,  JD  r4:i~54 

1.8. 50  J  1:3  2.22.30  L  4:50 

1.8.5$  J  1:14  2.22.30  JD  r5:i~9 

1.9.20  J  11:1-14  2.22.30  JD  16:1-13 

1.9.2$  JA  1:14  2.22.36  JD  111:1-57 

1.18.3$  ^0:34  2.22-3C  JD  112:1-19 

1. 22. 10  Sc  1:3  2.22.3$  JD  113:1-30 

2.22.3$  JD       119:18 

2.2.50          JD  1:3  2.22.60  L  8:56-57 

2.17.9$  r9:i-42  2.23.26  L  ^5:1-9 

2.20.56        L          117:12  2.25.3$  ri:i 

463 


14  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 


Irenaeus 

Gospel 

Irenaeus 

Gospel 

2.2&.&C 

L 

14:28 

4-5-5* 

18:56 

4.6.5^ 

n:i8 

3.I.IC 

JD 

V2i:20 

4.7.10 

18:56 

3.5.1* 

Ap 

114:6 

4-7-3' 

L 

vi4:6-7 

3-8.1' 

L 

v8:34 

4.9.20 

L 

vi:5o 

3.8.3* 

J 

1:3 

4.10.10 

J 

V5:  39-40 

3-9-3' 

V2:25 

4.10.10 

Sc 

V5:46 

3.10.36 

J 

vi  :  15-16 

4.13.46 

L 

vi5'.i5 

3.10.36 

J 

1:29 

4-13-4' 

W 

8:58 

3.10.3*; 

J 

1:14 

4.14.10 

W 

17:5 

3.10.3* 

J 

11:29 

4.14.16 

L 

15:16 

3.11  .16 

JD 

1:1-5 

4.  14.  ic 

L 

vi7:24 

3.11.20 

J 

1:10-11 

4.18.30 

19:11 

3.II.2C 

G 

1:14 

4.20.26 

1:14 

3.H.3C 

DL 

1:14 

4  .  20  .  6c 

G 

si  :  18 

3.11.40 

DL 

si:  6-8 

4.20.110 

L 

31:18 

3-H-5* 

12:1-11 

4.20.116 

J 

121:20 

3-H-5& 

L 

r6:n 

4.21.30 

C 

19:15 

3.11.60 

31:18 

4.22.10 

W 

r*3:5 

3.11.60 

1:47,  49 

4.23.10 

L 

4:35-38 

3.11.86 

GJ 

1:1-3 

4-25.36 

4:37 

3.11.90 

JA 

114:16 

4.32.16 

G 

1:3 

3.13.20 

L 

314:7,  9-10 

4-33-2C 

ri9:34 

3.i6.2C 

vi  :  13-14 

4-35-3' 

1:19:34 

3.16.56 

JD 

320:31 

4.36.40 

S 

r4:i4 

3.16.70 

L 

2:4 

4.36.66 

L 

5:i4 

3.16.76 

37:30 

4.37.56 

V3^6 

3.17.20 

L 

116:7 

3.18.10 

n:i-3 

5  .  6  .  26 

L 

V2:i9-2i 

3.19.10 

S 

8:36 

5.7.10 

C 

120  :  20 

3.19.20 

vi:i3 

5'13-1* 

111:39 

3-I9-3' 

114:2 

5.13.16 

11:43-44 

3.20.26 

1:15:9 

5-I3-I' 

L 

v5  :  28-29 

3.21.100 

1:3 

5.15.20 

L 

5:14 

3.22.26 

JD 

4:6 

5.15-26 

L 

9:3 

3-22.2C 

rxi;3S 

5.15.3' 

39:7 

3.22.2C 

^9:34 

5.18.16 

L 

14:  ii 

5.18.20 

r7:38-39 

4.2.30 

J 

35:46-47 

5.18.26 

JD 

1:1-3 

4.2.70 

4:41-42 

5.18.26 

JD 

i  :  10-12 

4-2-7' 

ri2:32 

5.18.26 

J 

xx  14 

4-5-2C 

L 

11:25 

5.18.36 

1:12 

4-5-3* 

L 

8:56 

5.22.2C 

L 

s8:44 

464 


5ITY 

IBENAEUS   TESTIMONY   TO   THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  15 

Irenaeus  ^Gospel  Irenaeus  Gospel 

5.23.2*;        L  8:44  5.31.2(1        L         120:20 

5.25.40        L  5:43  5-36-2a        L         VI4-2 

5.27.26        L  3:18-21 

5. 31. ic        L         320:17  Fr.  35 


A  study  of  this  second  table  is  hardly  less  suggestive  than  that  of  the 
preceding. 

1.  From  it  one  might  infer  that  Irenaeus  had  neglected  the  use  of  the 
gospel  in  the  early  portion  of  his  work,  for  only  twelve  of  the  chapters  of 
his  entire  first  two  books  have  even  a  reference  to  the  gospel.     This  neglect 
is  merely  apparent,  however,  not  real.     In  his  first  book  Irenaeus  was  only 
stating  the  teachings  of  his  opponents  preparatory  to  making  a  criticism 
of  them,  and  even  the  slight  use  which  he  made  of  the  gospel  was  not 
strictly  in  accord  with  the  plan  which  he  outlined  for  himself.     In  his  second 
book  he  presented  his  own  more  philosophical  criticism  of  the  Gnostics,  and 
this  did  not  properly  allow  a  considerable  use  of  the  gospel.     Not  till  the 
beginning  of  his  third  book  did  his  general  scheme  make  it  appropriate  for 
him  to  appeal  largely  to  the  Scriptures. 

2.  The  summary  of  the  contents  of  the  gospel  in  2.22.3  *s  worthy  of 
special  attention.     In  discussing  the  chronology  of  Jesus'  life,  Irenaeus 
referred  to  those  parts  of  the  gospel  which  seemed  to  him  to  prove  that  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  extended  over  more  than  a  year.    His  reference  becomes 
a  kind  of  epitome  of  the  contents  of  the  gospel  and  indicates,  in  compact 
form,  the  contents  of  the  gospel  as  he  had  it.     A  glance  at  the  gospel  refer- 
ences, in  the  table,  opposite  to  2.22.3  giyes  considerable  reason  to  infer, 
from  this  reference  alone,  that  Irenaeus  had  before  him  chaps.  2-19  inclusive 
of  our  gospel. 

3.  In  the  preceding  table,  the  variety  of  abbreviations  for  the  authorities 
to  whom  Irenaeus  attributed  the  statements  of  the  gospel  indicated  the 
looseness  of  his  usage.    Here  this  variety  offers  a  different  suggestion.    The 
reader  will  observe  a  change  of  usage  during  the  progress  of  the  work.     In 
the  early  portion  of  his  discussion  Irenaeus  attributed  his  quotations  and 
references  chiefly  to  "John,"  or  to  "John,  the  disciple  of  the  Lord."  Later 
there  is  more  variety,  as  though  his  thought  of  the  source  of  the  gospel  state- 
ments was  changing  and  becoming  unstable.     In  Book  5  he  attributed 
the  statements  of  the  gospel  almost  entirely  to  "the  Lord."    The  simplest 
conclusion  is  that  his  conception  of  Jesus  had  developed  in  the  course  of 
the  composition  of  his  apology  and  manifested  itself  in  the  selection  of  the 
titles  for  his  authorities.     Such  a  development  in  his  thought  was  natural 
enough,  for  the  summaries  at  the  beginning  and  close  of  his  different  books 

465 


16  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

make  it  probable  that  the  composition  extended  over  some  months  at  least, 
perhaps  over  a  longer  period;  he  may  even  have  published  the  work  in 
instalments,  for  he  was  evidently  eager  to  offset  the  Gnostic  teachings  as 
early  as  possible.  If  the  work  did  thus  cover  an  extended  period,  he  would 
easily  come  to  feel  that  the  gospel  was  more  directly  the  product  of  Jesus 
himself,  not  as  to  its  writing,  but  as  to  its  source  and  authority. 

From  the  extent  of  Irenaeus'  use  of  the  fourth  gospel,  as  seen  in  the 
above  varied  ways,  we  are  warranted  in  concluding  that  he  possessed  sub- 
stantially the  same  gospel  which  has  come  down  to  us,  and  that  his  text 
was  not  very  different  from  the  one  which  we  read. 


466 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  FOR  IRENAEUS 

The  large  use  which  Irenaeus  made  of  the  fourth  gospel  leaves  no 
doubt  that  he  was  much  interested  in  the  material  which  the  gospel  gave 
to  him.  This  gospel  was  one  of  the  chief  authorities  to  which  he  appealed. 
If  he  did  not  think  it  superior  to  other  scriptures  to  which  he  turned  in 
support  of  his  arguments,  he  at  least  did  not  regard  it  as  inferior  to  others. 
It  is  of  interest  and  of  importance,  therefore,  to  know  what  Irenaeus  thought 
of  the  authorship  of  the  fourth  gospel.  Anticipations  of  this  have  already 
appeared  in  the  titles  which  the  two  tables  present  for  Irenaeus'  authorities 
in  referring  to  the  gospel.  The  following  statements  will  put  the  matter 
into  more  definite  form. 

1.  For  Irenaeus,  the  fourth  gospel  was  the  work  of  John  of  Asia  of  late 
apostolic  times,  apostolic  times  extending,  for  him,  as  far  as  the  days  of 
Trajan  (2.22.5*;;  3-3-40- 

The  evidence  for  this  statement  is  so  ample  that  there  is  little  need  to 
discuss  it.  Reference  to  the  above  tables  is  all  that  is  required  to  warrant 
it.  From  those  it  is  seen  that  about  one-fourth  of  the  references  to  the 
gospel  were  attributed,  in  one  form  of  expression  or  another,  to  John. 
Sometimes  the  quotation  or  reference  was  attributed  to  John  without  any 
further  identification  of  the  person  of  whom  he  thought.  Frequently  the 
author  of  the  gospel  was  John,  "the  disciple  of  the  Lord."  Again  he  was 
simply  "the  disciple  of  the  Lord,"  but  the  context  makes  it  certain  that 
the  author  so  designated  was  this  same  John.  The  very  freedom  which 
Irenaeus  felt  in  his  reference  to  the  gospel  is  an  indirect  assurance  of  his 
certainty  concerning  the  author. 

2.  Aside  from  John  the  Baptist  and  John  Mark,  Irenaeus  recognized 
only  one  John  of  apostolic  times. 

John  Mark  is  mentioned  in  3.14.10,  but  with  a  clear  recognition  that 
he  was  a  different  person  from  the  John  of  whom  Irenaeus  thought  as  the 
author  of  the  gospel.  John  the  Baptist  is  named,  or  the  language  which 
the  gospels  attribute  to  him  is  quoted  as  his,  several  times  (e.  g.,  1.3.56; 
1.30.126;  3.10.30;  4.4.36;  5.17.46).  In  some  instances,  as  already 
pointed  out  (p.  13),  Irenaeus  did  not  concern  himself  to  inform  his  readers 
whether  he  was  speaking  of  the  Baptist,  or  the  Evangelist.  In  4.4.36  he 
chose  to  say  that  the  John  he  was  introducing  was  the  Baptist,  even  though 
467]  17 


18  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

he  had  referred  to  him  simply  as  John  only  a  few  lines  earlier  on  his  page. 
No  sufficient  reason  for  this  appears.  Perhaps  it  was  due  to  the  general 
habit  of  looseness  of  expression  which  is  a  characteristic  of  Irenaeus'  style 
and  is  the  outcome  of  looseness  of  thought.  At  the  same  time,  to  anyone 
who  examines  the  references  in  their  contexts,  it  is  evident  that  Irenaeus 
was  never  in  doubt  as  to  whether  John  the  Baptist  was  a  different  man  from 
the  author  of  the  gospel. 

This  is  an  important  point.  It  limits  at  once  the  possibilities  as  to  the 
author  of  the  fourth  gospel  for  Irenaeus.  For  him,  the  author  of  the  gospel 
was  the  one  John  of  New  Testament  times  other  than  John  the  Baptist  and 
John  Mark. 

3.  This  John  of  Asia  who  was,  for  Irenaeus,  the  writer  of  the  fourth 
gospel,  was  not  only  "the  disciple  of  the  Lord,"  but  also  an  "apostle." 

Those  who  have  discussed  the  testimony  of  Irenaeus  have  sometimes 
minimized,  or  even  entirely  overlooked,  this  point.  It  is  important,  there- 
fore, that  the  meaning  of  Irenaeus'  language  be  made  clear,  and  a  single 
passage  seems  sufficient  to  put  the  matter  beyond  question.  It  is  that  in 
i .  9 .  2&,  where  Irenaeus  declared  that  the  interpretation  of  the  fourth  gospel 
which  his  opponents  had  offered  would  make  John  refer  to  "the  primary 
ogdoad,  in  which  there  was  as  yet  no  Jesus,  and  no  Christ,  the  teacher  of 
John.  But  that  the  apostle  did  not  so  speak  ....  he  himself  has  made 
evident;  for  he  declares,  'And  the  word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us.' "  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  this  does  not  give  the  phrase  for  which  some 
have  asked,  "John,  the  Apostle,"  or  "John,  the  son  of  Zebedee."  But 
the  reader  of  the  statement  in  its  context,  if  not  in  the  quotation,  can  hardly 
find  the  language  less  definite.  The  expression  is  an  incidental  one,  but 
it  can  hardly  mean  that  Irenaeus  had  in  mind  any  other  than  the  apostle 
John,  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

A  passage  from  the  third  book  is  hardly  less  decisive.  At  the  close  of 
3.3.4,  Irenaeus  wrote:  "The  church  in  Ephesus,  founded  by  Paul,  and 
having  John  remaining  among  them  permanently  until  the  times  of  Trajan, 
is  a  true  witness  of  the  traditions  of  the  apostles."  The  obvious  meaning 
of  this  statement  is  that,  for  Irenaeus,  the  John  of  Asia  was  an  apostle. 
Taken  with  the  point  which  has  been  made  above — that  Irenaeus  recog- 
nized only  one  John  of  apostolic  days  other  than  John  the  Baptist  and 
John  Mark — the  statement  means  that  the  writer  of  the  gospel  was  an 
apostle.  The  passage  in  2.22.5*;  contains  similar  language  and  gives  the 
same  conclusion. 

Again,  in  3 .5.  la,  Irenaeus  referred  to  "those  apostles  who  did  also  write 
the  gospel  ....  pointing  out  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the  truth." 

468 


IKENAEUS   TESTIMONY   TO   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL  19 

This  is  manifestly  a  reference  to  John  14:6,  and  makes  the  author  of  the 
statement  an  apostle.  This  apostle  must  have  been  John,  for  John  was 
Irenaeus'  author  of  the  fourth  gospel. 

Four  other  passages  yield  essentially  the  same  evidence,  though  not  in 
so  specific  form.  In  3 . 1 1 .  gb  Irenaeus  urged  that  the  Valentinian  writing 
which  the  Valentinians  called  "The  Gospel  of  Truth"  did  not  at  all  agree 
with  "the  gospels  of  the  apostles."  Thus,  by  the  use  of  the  plural,  "the 
apostles,"  two  at  least  of  the  evangelists  were  made  apostles,  one  of  whom, 
for  Irenaeus,  is  most  naturally  thought  of  as  the  fourth.  In  3.12.50 
the  Peter  and  John  who  are  described  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Acts  are 
said  to  have  returned  "ad  reliquos  co-apostolos"  This  John,  according  to 
Acts,  is  evidently  the  apostle,  and  Irenaeus  could  hardly  have  thought  of 
him  differently.  From  the  close  of  3 .16.1  we  learn  that  Irenaeus  judged 
it  necessary  to  take  into  account  "the  entire  mind  of  the  apostles,"  which 
he  made  to  include  the  mind  of  John  as  well  as  of  Matthew  and  others. 
Later  (3.21 .3^),  he  insisted  that  the  LXX  translation  harmonized  with  the 
traditions  of  "the  apostles;  for  Peter,  and  John,  and  Matthew,  and  Paul, 
and  the  rest  successively,"  followed  that  translation. 

Remembering  that  John  the  disciple  was,  for  Irenaeus,  the  writer  of  the 
gospel,  Irenaeus'  letter  to  Victor  (Eus.H. £.5.24)  gives  a  specific  state- 
ment that  the  author  of  the  gospel  was  an  apostle.  Irenaeus  wrote  that 
Polycarp  would  not  forego  his  custom  of  observing  Easter  because  he  had 
received  it  from  John  and  "other  apostles."  John  is  thus  described, 
indirectly,  as  an  apostle. 

This  cumulation  of  evidence  places  Irenaeus'  opinion  beyond  doubt. 
The  author  of  the  fourth  gospel  was  as  certainly  an  apostle  for  him  as 
though  he  had  taken  a  page,  to  state,  argue,  and  prove  the  point.  He 
would  have  been  astonished  if  he  could  have  known  that  any  reader  would 
ever  think  otherwise.  One  can  hardly  believe  that  those  who  have  been 
in  doubt  about  the  matter  have  read  Irenaeus.1 

i  E.  g.,  H.  L.  Jackson,  The  Fourth  Gospel  and  Some  Recent  German  Criticism, 
1906,  p.  45:  "The  decisive  word  'apostle'  is  missing."  Cf.  especially  the  hesitation 
of  Swete,  The  Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  1906,  p.  clxxiv:  "  No  second-century  testimony, 
except  that  of  the  Leucian  Acts,  excludes  the  hypothesis  that  the  John  who  lived  in 
Asia  and  wrote  the  Apocalypse  [and  as  certainly,  substantially,  the  gospel,  according 
to  Swete]  was  the  Elder,  or  compels  us  to  believe  that  John  the  Apostle  ever  resided  in 
Asia.  Moreover,  it  is  certainly  remarkable  that  in  so  many  of  the  earliest  references 
to  him  John  of  Asia  is  called  'the  disciple,'  and  not,  expressly  at  least,  the  Apostle." 
C.  A.  Scott,  in  reviewing  Swete's  work  for  The  Expositor  (January,  1907,  p.  45)  blindly 
follows  in  the  same  direction,  and  speaks  of  "  Irenaeus'  steady  refraining  from  calling 
'John'  an  apostle." 


20  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

Though  the  conclusion  is  so  evident  and  convincing,  one  may  still  ask 
why  Irenaeus  never  used  the  phrase,  "John,  the  apostle."  The  answer  is 
an  easy  one  for  those  who  have  so  read  Irenaeus  as  to  catch  his  spirit  and  to 
discover  the  principles  which  guided  him  in  the  choice  of  expressions.  Such 
readers  discover  that  the  terminology  of  Irenaeus  was  that  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. Now,  the  New  Testament  usually  introduces  a  person  by  name 
without  any  further  designation.  This  is  the  New  Testament  usage  con- 
cerning John,  except  that  he  is  distinguished  as  the  brother  of  James;  and 
it  accounts  for  the  usage  of  Irenaeus,  for  John,"the  apostle,"  is  not  a  New 
Testament  expression.  But  "disciple"  is  New  Testament  language.  In 
the  gospels,  "disciple"  is  the  ordinary  word,  "apostle"  being  very  uncom- 
mon as  compared  with  it.  From  the  New  Testament  we  could  not  expect 
to  get  "John,  the  apostle."  Still  further,  "the  disciple,"  in  the  singular* 
as  a  title  for  a  person,  is  an  expression  found  in  the  fourth  gospel  only.1 
To  be  sure,  the  expression,  "the  disciple  of  the  Lord"  is  not  found  in  the 
gospel.  On  the  other  hand,  Irenaeus  did  not  use  the  name  "Jesus"  alone, 
but,  as  has  been  pointed  out  above  (p.  15),  he  spoke  frequently  of  "the 
Lord."2  It  was  a  very  natural  thing,  then,  for  Irenaeus  to  retain  "the 
disciple,"  but  to  change  "of  Jesus"  into  "of  the  Lord."  With  this  slight 
change,  the  gospel  itself  offered  a  unique  title  for  its  author,  while  to  have 
spoken  of  him,  either  as  an  author  or  otherwise,  as  "apostle,"  would  have 
been  to  disregard  entirely  the  usage  which  the  New  Testament  gave.  When 
he  was  referred  to  as  an  apostle,  it  was  only  incidentally. 

This  conclusion  naturally  raises  the  question :  What  was  Irenaeus'  gen- 
eral use  of  the  word  "apostle "  ?  The  material  offered  in  reply  is  interesting 
indeed.  It  shows  not  only  his  thought  of  an  "apostle,"  but  also  his  attitude 
to  the  apostolic  age  as  a  whole. 

According  to  his  statement  in  3 .  n  .4*;,  he  regarded  John  the  Baptist  as 
an  apostle.  The  Latin  reads:  "Ipse  [John  the  Baptist]  et  prophetae  et 
apostoli  locum  habuerit"  The  genitive  with  "locum"  might  seem  to  be 
a  careful  method  of  avoiding  the  statement  that  John  was  an  apostle,  of 
saying  only  that  John  was  a  kind  of  vice-apostle.  But  this  is  to  attribute 
to  Irenaeus  a  carefulness  of  language  which  he  never  observed.  More- 
over, such  an  interpretation  proves  too  much.  If  it  proves  that  John  was 
only  a  vice-apostle,  it  proves  that  he  was  only  a  vice-prophet,  for  the  con- 

1  See  John  18:15,  16;   19:26,27;   20:2,3,4,8;   21:7,20,23,24;  in  some  of  which 
the  Greek  shows  the  article  as  the  English  cannot. 

2  See  Heresies  2.22  for  an  extended  example  of  his  usage,  the  more  striking 
because  he  is  there  discussing  Jesus'  age,  which  would,  if  any  topic  would,  lead  him 
to  use  the  name  Jesus. 

470 


IKENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  21 

struction  is  the  same  for  both  words.  But  Irenaeus  had  just  made  him  a 
prophet  by  comparing  him  with  "the  other  prophets."  Accordingly,  he 
intended  the  phrase  to  mean  that  John  was  an  apostle  as  well  as  a  prophet. 

A  statement  at  the  close  of  3.11.9  is  even  more  inclusive.  Irenaeus 
had  just  discussed,  in  order,  the  evidence  from  the  four  gospels.  He  con- 
tinued: "Examinata  igitur  sententia  eorum  qui  nobis  tradiderunt  evan- 
gelium,  ....  veniamus  et  ad  reliquos  apostolos."  This  makes  Mark  and 
Luke  apostles,  for  it  is  evident  that  Irenaeus  had  these  men  in  mind, 
rather  than  Peter  and  Paul — whom  he  had  previously  (3.1.1)  made  sources, 
for  Mark  and  Luke  respectively,  of  the  second  and  third  gospels — because  he 
proceeded  at  once  to  discuss  Peter  as  one  of  the  "remaining  apostles." 
These  latter  also  are  interesting,  for  they  include  not  only  Peter,  but  John 
(3 . 12 .30),  Philip  (3  . 12 .80),  Stephen  (3.12.  100),  and  Barnabas  (3.12. 15^), 
as  though  Irenaeus  was  writing  with  Acts  before  him  and  arranging  the 
material  about  these  prominent  persons  who  are  mentioned  in  the  book. 
This  accounts  for  the  repetition  of  testimony  from  John.  And  he  made 
the  matter  still  more  definite  when  he  introduced  his  summary  of  the  entire 
argument  with  the  statement:  "Sicapostoli  ....  religiose  agebant"  As 
though  to  clinch  the  point — yet  to  do  so  never  occurred  to  him — he  later 
(3.21 .40)  quoted  Matt,  i :  18  and  Luke  i  :35  together  as  statements  which 
"ipsi  [the  apostles]  testificantur."1 

Indeed,  the  apostles,  for  Irenaeus,  were  not  limited  to  such  a  list  as  that 
which  has  just  been  given.  He  thought  of  all  the  Christian  men  of  the 
apostolic  days,  at  least  all  the  prominent  ones,  as  essentially  apostles.  This 
statement  cannot  be  proved  as  definitely  as  the  several  persons  named  above 
have  been  proved  to  have  been,  for  Irenaeus,  apostles,  but  it  is  implied  in 
such  expressions  as  the  following:  "This  tradition  from  the  apostles" 
(2.9.ic);  that  Soter  was  the  twelfth  bishop  of  Rome  "from  the  apostles 
....  from  the  apostles  till  now"  (3.3.3^);  "the  tradition  from  the 
apostles"  (3.5.10);  "the  succession  from  the  apostles"  (4.26.20);  "the 
doctrine  of  the  apostles  and  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  church"  (4. 33. 80) ; 
"all  these  [Irenaeus'  opponents]  are  of  much  later  date  than  the  bishops  to 
whom  the  apostles  committed  the  churches  ....  the  sure  tradition  from 
the  apostles"  (5.20.10,  b). 

Accordingly,  when  Irenaeus  spoke  of  a  man  as  an  "apostle,"  that  in 
itself  means  merely  that  the  man  belonged  to  the  first  century.  The  term 

*  Cf.  Monnier,  La  notion  de  Vapostolat,  1903,  p.  362:  "L'apostolat  de  Paul  et 
des  Douze  n'est  pas  exclusif  d'un  apostolat  plus  etendu.  Irenee  invoque,  a  1'appui 
des  Evangiles,  le  temoignage  du  reste  des  apotres  (3.11.90).  II  identifie  done  les 
Evangelistes  avec  les  Apotres.  Barnabas  aussi  est  un  apotre." 

471 


22  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

becomes  more  definite  only  through  a  limitation  by  other  data  which  he 
offers,  as  e.  g.,  in  the. case  of  John  the  author  of  the  gospel,  who,  in  the 
manner  indicated  above,  is  not  only  distinguished  from  John  the  Baptist 
and  John  Mark  (p.  17),  but  is  also  found  to  be  clearly  an  apostle  (pp.  18, 19). 

"Sacerdotes  autem  sunt  omnes  Domini  apostoli"  in  4.8.36  appears  to 
indicate  an  even  looser  use  of  the  word  "apostle,"  as  though  apostles  were 
not  confined  to  the  first  century.  But  perhaps  Irenaeus  did  not  mean  that. 
The  context  can  hardly  be  said  to  make  the  time  of  the  verb  certain.  There 
is  less  reason  for  pressing  the  point  in  either  direction  because  we  have  only 
the  Latin.  The  Greek  which  Irenaeus  wrote  may  have  given  the  passage 
a  different  coloring. 

A  statement  of  Irenaeus  in  3.12.15^  further  illustrates  his  attitude  to 
the  apostolic  age  as  a  whole.  Inasmuch  as  it  is  usually  misinterpreted  and 
made  to  create  a  prejudice  against  his  testimony  to  the  fourth  gospel,  its 
consideration  here  will  serve  a  twofold  purpose.  It  is  the  parenthetical 
statement,  "ubique  enlm  simul  cum  eo  adsistentes  inveniuntur  Petrus  et 
lacobus  et  loannes,"  in  which  the  reference  to  James,  directly  after  Irenaeus 
had  been  speaking  of  James  the  brother  of  Jesus  and  without  anything  to 
differentiate  them,  is  usually  understood  to  be  a  manifest  confusion  of  the 
two  men.  But  the  language  of  Irenaeus,  when  rightly  understood,  does 
not  involve  such  a  conclusion.  The  key  to  the  language  is  to  be  found 
in  what  has  been  said  above  (p.  20)  of  the  way  in  which  Irenaeus 
adopted  New  Testament  phraseology.  The  combination, ' '  Peter,  James,  and 
John,"  was  a  New  Testament  expression  of  special  prominence  and  signifi- 
cance. At  this  point  of  his  discussion  it  served  Irenaeus  admirably.  He 
was  appealing  to  what  he  regarded  as  general  Judaeo-Christian  custom  in 
the  apostolic  age  concerning  eating  with  gentiles.  This  is  seen  from  the 
form  of  his  concluding  statement:  "Sic  apostoli,  quos  universi  actus  et 
universae  doctrinae  Dominus  testes  fecit  ....  religiose  agebant."  It  is 
seen  also  in  the  tenor  of  the  entire  section.  Accordingly,  he  could  include 
James  the  brother  of  John  as  proof  of  his  argument;  and  the  familiar  gospel 
phrase  was  used  without  stopping  to  consider  that,  in  its  context,  it  could 
be  misunderstood.  It  was  not  Irenaeus'  nature  or  custom  to  stop  to  con- 
sider such  possibilities  of  misunderstanding.  To  fail  to  recognize  this  is  to 
do  Irenaeus  much  injustice. 

Aside  from  the  case  of  4.8.36  above,  therefore,  and  perhaps  inclusive 
of  it,  the  language  of  Irenaeus  implies  that  he  thought  of  the  apostles  as 
men  belonging  to  the  first  century  only  and  as  forming  a  group  of  Christians 
by  themselves.  They  occupied  this  unique  position,  however,  not  because 
they  belonged  to  the  circle  of  the  twelve,  or  of  the  twelve  and  Paul,  but 

472 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  23 

because  they  had  the  privilege  of  a  peculiar  relation  to  Jesus.  Many  of 
them  had  associated  with  him.  Others  (especially  Mark  and  Luke)  had 
been  honored  with  the  position  of  writing  of  his  life  and  mission.  Others 
(e.  g.,  Stephen,  Philip,  and  Barnabas)  had  rendered  special  service  appro- 
priate to  the  period.  One,  John,  who  had  been  most  intimately  associated 
with  Jesus,  had  lived  to  remarkably  advanced  years  and  preserved  the 
character  of  the  age.  While  he  remained,  the  "apostolic"  age  continued; 
when  he  died  that  age  passed  away.  In  view  of  all  this,  the  heritage  which 
came  from  the  age  of  the  apostles  was  unique  and  was  worthy  of  pre- 
eminent consideration,  whether  this  heritage  came  in  written  form  or 
through  personal  tradition.  Irenaeus  did  not  think  of  criticizing  it,  if  it  was 
well  attested.  That  which  was  assured  to  have  come  from  the  apostles 
was  authoritative. 

4.  While  it  must  be  admitted,  therefore,  that  the  word  "apostle" 
applied  by  Irenaeus  to  the  John  whom  he  recognized  as  author  of  the 
gospel  would  not,  of  itself,  identify  him  as  the  son  of  Zebedee,  yet  it  re- 
mains true  that  "apostle"  usually  meant  for  him  what  it  means  in  the 
New  Testament.  Accordingly,  when  we  take  into  account  that  he  recog- 
nized only  one  John  other  than  John  the  Baptist  and  John  Mark  and  that 
this  one  John,  on  the  basis  of  Irenaeus'  own  testimony  rightly  understood, 
was  an  "apostle,"  the  conditions  which  his  testimony  as  a  whole  imposes 
are  satisfied  only  by  the  conclusion  that  the  son  of  Zebedee  was,  for 
Irenaeus,  the  author  of  the  fourth  gospel. 


473 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  IRENAEUS  TESTIMONY  FOR  US 

We  have  seen  that  Irenaeus  thought  of  the  son  of  Zebedee  as  the  author 
of  the  fourth  gospel.  His  certainty  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  gospel, 
however,  cannot  be  accepted  as  affording  the  same  certainty  for  us.  Even 
with  all  his  assurance,  Irenaeus  may  have  been  led  into  error.  His  work 
was  not  the  result  of  critical  investigation,  at  least  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
now  think  of  critical  investigation,  and  we  cannot  accept  his  confident 
statements  at  their  face  value,  unless  we  have  discovered  that  they  are 
worth  that.  We  know  that  he  made  a  mistake  concerning  the  third  gospel, 
for  he  wrote  that  Luke,  as  "the  companion  of  Paul,  recorded  in  a  book  the 
gospel  preached  by  him"  (3.i.i<;).  The  student  of  the  synoptic  gospels 
at  the  present  time  does  not  understand  that  Luke  gained  the  material  for 
his  gospel  from  Paul.  Irenaeus  may  have  made  a  mistake  concerning  the 
composition  of  the  fourth  gospel  also.  The  material  which  he  transmitted 
to  us  must  be  critically  examined,  therefore,  that  we  may  discover  how  well 
founded  his  assurance  was. 

This  material,  as  it  bears  upon  the  fourth  gospel,  is  presented  in  what 
he  wrote  of  his  relation  to  Polycarp,  to  the  presbyters,  and  to  Papias.  We 
may  consider  that  concerning  Polycarp  first.  It  is  extant  in  three  signifi- 
cant passages  from  Irenaeus'  writings.  These  are:  His  letter  to  Victor, 
bishop  of  Rome,  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.  £.5.24);  a  letter  to  Florinus, 
also  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.  £.5.20);  and  Heresies  3.3.4. 

The  significant  phrases  of  Eusebius'  introduction  to  the  letter  to  Victor 
and  of  the  letter  itself,  for  this  study,  are  as  follows:  'Ev  oTs  [the  different 
ones  who  wrote  to  Victor]  /cat  6  Etp^vatos  CK  7rpoo-a>7rou  5>v  i/yetTo  Kara  TYJV 
FaAAtav  aSeAc^aiv  ....  CTrtXe'ywv  •  .  .  .  .  Kat  Totairny  /aev  Troi/aAi'a  rwv 
ov  vvv  «<£'  i^u,(ov  yeyovvtd,  dAAa  Kat  TTO\V  irporepov  CTTL  rail/  77730 
Kat  ovScv  tXarrov  Travre?  ovrot  et/o^vevcrav  re,  Kat  elprjvcvojjiev  Trpo? 
dAAryA.ovs  ....  Kat  TOV  fJua.Ka.piov  Ho\VKapTrov  eTriS^TJcravTos  e'v  ' 
'AviKrjrov  ....  ev#vs  f.lprjvevcrav  ....  ovre  yap  6  'AvtKiyros  TOV 
TTOV  Tretcrai  covvaro  fir]  rrjptiv  are  /u,€ra  'Iwavvov  TOV  fiadrjTov  Kvptov  T^/AWV  Kat 
A.OITTWV  aTrooToAwi/,  ot?  owSt€Tpn/rev,  act  TtTrjprfKOTa  •  ovre  fjirjv  o  IIoAvKapTros 

TOV  'Avwoprov  €7reto-c  -nypeti/ The  language  warrants  the  following 

statements  concerning  the  source  and  trustworthiness  of  the  testimony. 

i.  The  letter  was  written,  on  behalf  of  the  Christians  in  Gaul,  to  Victor 

24  [474 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  25 

as  the  bishop  of  the  church  in  Rome.  It  was  evidently  a  letter  which  was 
intended  to  be  of  a  public  nature,  an  "open  letter,"  so  that  it  was  expected 
to  be  subject  to  criticism.  It  became  public  property  and  stood  the  test  of 
criticism  well  enough  to  be  regarded  as  valuable  for  preservation. 

2.  From  the  letter  we  learn  that  Polycarp  was  in  Rome  in  the  time  of 
Anicetus  (who  was  bishop  of  Rome  about  154  to  156).     One  of  the  leading 
topics  of  conversation  at  that  time  was  the  observance  of  Easter.     In  this 
discussion  Polycarp  maintained  his  position,  because  he  could  say  that  his 
custom  of  observance  rested  on  the  custom  of  "John,  the  disciple  of  our 
Lord,  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles,"  with  whom  he  had  observed  it. 

3.  In  this  letter  Irenaeus  asserted  that,  in  spite  of  the  difference  between 
the  Roman  Christians  and  those  of  Asia  as  to  the  observance  of  Easter, 
there  had  been  fellowship  and  peace  between  them  at  the  time  of  which  he 
was  speaking,  i.  e.,  at  a  little  past  the  middle  of  the  second  century.     The 
Roman  Christians  in  the  time  of  Irenaeus  were  in  a  position  to  know  whether 
such  had  been  the  situation  in  the  time  of  Anicetus,  only  thirty  or  forty 
years  before.     The  memory  of  some  of  the  older  ones  could  have  bridged 
the  time  with  substantial  accuracy,  and  documents  of  one  kind  or  another 
were  almost  certainly  in  existence  bearing  on  a  topic  which  was  regarded  as 
so  important  as  that  of  Easter  and  the  earlier  relations  between  Asia  and 
Rome.     Irenaeus'  appeal  to  Victor  must  have  been  well  founded,  and  we 
are  led  to  conclude  that  the  situation  at  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
was  substantially  that  which  Irenaeus  described  toward  the  close  of  the 
century. 

4.  Such  a  presentation  of  the  question  in  dispute  as  Irenaeus  made  in 
this  letter  implies  that  he  was  independently  and  directly  well  informed  as 
to  the  situation  in  Asia  at  the  time  of  Anicetus.     Otherwise  he  could  not 
have  written  to   Rome   as  he  did.     If  he  had  gotten  his   information 
merely  through  Rome,  Rome  could  have  replied  that  his  argument  had  no 
value  for  her,  since  she  was  already  in  possession  of  as  much  information 
as  he  was.     At  most  his  letter  could  only  have  been  an  appeal,  and  he  would 
naturally  have  made  such  an  appeal  on  the  basis  of  reference  to  what  he 
had  received  from  Rome.     But  the  letter  contains  no   such  reference. 
Rather  it  proceeds  in  an  independent  manner.     The  dispute  had  not 
arisen  within  the  times  in  which  he  was  living,  he  said,  but  long  before; 
and  the  statement  implies  that  he  had  known  of  the  entire  history  of  the 
dispute  independently  of  his  relations  with  Rome.     He  could  easily  have 
known  this,  of  course,  since  close  communication  between  the  East  and  the 
West  is  well  known  to  have  been  an  ordinary  event  of  the  times.1 

1  That  his  letter  to  Victor  did  not  accomplish  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  sent  is 

475 


26  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

5.  The  fact  that  the  dispute  had  arisen  long  before  the  time  of  Irenaeus 
implies  that  it  had  been  under  discussion  long  enough  to  bring  out  all  the 
facts  in  the  case  and  make  them  well  known.     As  a  corollary,  the  statement 
of  Irenaeus  implies  that  an  error  of  claim  would  easily  have  been  recognized 
and  set  aside.    There  were  plenty  of  well-recognized  data,  and  Irenaeus 
naturally  confined  himself  to  them. 

6.  Putting  all  this  material  together,  it  is  seen  that  the  testimony  of 
Irenaeus  in  this  letter  is  not  a  single  testimony  from  the  last  part  of  the 
second  century.     Instead,  it  is  the  generally  accepted  understanding  of 
conditions  by  the  Christians  of  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  both  in 
Rome,  in  Asia,  and  in  Gaul. 

7.  But  this  takes  the  testimony,  at  least  as  much  of  it  as  came  from 
Polycarp,  back  to  his  lifetime  and  activity,  and  makes  it  substantially  his 
testimony.     We  have  in  this  letter  a  presentation  of  some  of  the  affairs  of 
Asia  as  Polycarp  had  been  familiar  with  them  during  his  long  life  in  the 
midst  of  Asian  events. 

8.  Inasmuch  as  Polyjcarp  was  a  man  some  thirty  years  of  age  at  the 
close  of  the  first  century,  we  are  here  given  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  was 
fully  conversant  with  events  and  opinions  of  that  time,  and  the  testimony 
which  we  are  considering  is  seen  to  be  the  testimony  of  the  close  of  the  first 
century. 

The  letter  to  Florinus  (Eus.  H.  E  .  5  .  20)  may  now  be  examined  in  a 
similar  way.  Florinus  had  renounced  some  views  which  Irenaeus  regarded 
as  essential  to  Christian  teaching,  and  Irenaeus  wrote  in  protest.  The 
portions  of  the  letter  which  bear  on  the  worth  of  the  testimony  and  its  signifi- 
cance for  the  fourth  gospel  are  as  follows:  TavYa  ra  Soy/wxra  ot  777)0  -rjp&v 
Trpeo-/3vYepot,  ot  Kat  rots  a7roo*ToAots  o*vyu,<£oiT^o~avTes,  ov  TrapeStoKav  o~ot.  EtoW 
yap  o~€,  Trots  tov  €Tt,  ev  rfj  Karoo  'Acria  Trapa  T<j>  IIoA.VKapTra>  ....  Tretpw/xevov 
cvSoKt/xetv  Trap'  avTto.  MaAAov  yap  ra  Tore  Sta/AVTy/xovevco  TCOV  evay^os  ytvo/xe- 
vcov  ....  wore  fie  BvvavOai  eiTretv  Kat  TOV  TOTTOV  cv  <a  Ka0e£dp,evos  SieA.e'yero 
6  /AUKaptos  IIoA-VKapTros,  Kat  Tas  TrpodSovs  avTOv  Kat  ras  eto-oSous  Kat  TOV  ^apaK- 
TOV  /3tov  Kat  TT)V  TOV  O-W/WITOS  tSeav  Kat  Tas  8taXe|ets  as  CTrotetTO  Trpos  TO 
,  Kat  TYJV  fJi€Ta  'IwoVi/ou  awao-Tpo^i/  cos  a,7njyyeXA.e,  Kat  ryv  TCOV  AOITTCOI/ 
TCOV  €<opaKOT(ov  TOV  Kvptov,  Kat  o>s  aTTC/otv^oveve  TOVS  \6yovs  avrSiv  •  KOL  irepl 
TOV  Kvptov  Tt'va  3]v  a  Trap'  eKetvcov  aKryKoet,  Kat  Trept  TCOV  8vva/x,ecov  avTOv,  Kat 


not  a  serious  objection  to  my  argument,  for  the  entire  account  of  the  affair,  as  given 
by  Eusebius,  indicates  that  Victor  acted  arbitrarily,  perhaps  for  ecclesiastical  purposes, 
rather  than  in  the  spirit  which  had  prevailed  in  the  time  of  Anicetus.  Though  Eusebius 
did  not  take  sides  in  the  matter,  it  is  evident  that  he  felt  the  strength  of  the  Asian  claim, 
as  may  be  seen  by  his  various  comments  throughout  the  chapter. 

476 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  27 


-rrf.pl  TT/S  Si8a<7KaA.i'as,  a>S  irapa  Ttov  avroTrrwv  TT)S  £an/S  TO€  Xoyou 
IIoA.vKap7ros,  ctTTTy-yyeAAc  travra  <rv/u,<£a>va  rats  ypa<£ats.  Tavra  ....  TJKOVOV. 
....  Kat  Swa/uai  8ia/xapTvpa<r0ai  ....  ort  ctri  TOIOVTOV  d/CTjKoa  €Ke«/os  6 
/uaxaptos  Trpctr/^vrepo?  ....  7rc<£evyoi  av  .  .  .  .  Kat  ex  Ttov  €7r«rToXa>v  & 
avTov,  aJv  €7r€<TTCiA.ev  T/TOI  rats  yeiTvitooms  6/cAcA.T/crMHS  eTricr-n/pi^wv  avras,  17  TO>V 
dSeA<£<ov  run  vovflcTwv  avrovs  KCU  TrpoTpeTro/xcvos,  Svvarai  <£avcpa)0)}vai.  This 

is  a  vivid  and  detailed  account  of  a  situation,  and  its  trustworthiness  is  of 
prime  importance.  As  to  what  this  trustworthiness  is,  the  letter  justifies 
the  following  statements  : 

1.  Irenaeus  was  writing  to  a  man  who  was  somewhat  older  than  himself. 
They  had  both  lived  in  Asia  in  early  life  and  had  known  each  other  there. 
Apparently  Florinus  had  remained  in  Asia  after  Irenaeus  had  removed  to 
Europe.     Whether  he  had,  or  had  not,  he  had  been  at  least  a  young  man 
as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  x     He  had  thus  been  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  the  situation  in  Asia  at  that  time.     Because  of  this  personal 
knowledge  which  Florinus  had,  Irenaeus  sought  to  dissuade  him  from  a 
course  of  thought  and  action  which  that  early  knowledge  and  the  training 
from  it,  according  to  Irenaeus,  fully  condemned.   The  argument  of  Irenaeus 
was  based  on  the  intimate  relations  which  had  existed  between  Florinus 
and  Polycarp  and  on  Irenaeus'  knowledge  of  those  relations  to  a  sufficient 
extent  to  be  certain  of  what  they  were.     The  facts  must  have  been  substan- 
tially as  Irenaeus  stated  them.     Otherwise  he  would  have  made  himself 
ridiculous  before  Florinus  and  merely  have  played  into  the  hand  of  his 
opponent.2 

2.  This  trustworthy  letter  traces  many  of  its  claims  to  Polycarp.     The 
fundamental  ones  for  determining  the  relation  of  Irenaeus  to  the  fourth 
gospel  are  of  that  kind.     The  material  offered  by  the  letter,  therefore,  is 
not  so  much  the  testimony  of  Irenaeus  as  it  is  the  testimony  of  Polycarp, 
for  Irenaeus  rested  his  case  on  the  claim  that  Florinus  had  received  these 
things  from  Polycarp  and  recognized  that  he  had  so  received  them.     If 
this  had  not  been  substantially  the  situation,  Irenaeus'  letter  would  have 
been  of  trifling  worth  and  probably  of  only  temporary  interest. 

1  I  am  assuming  the  chronology  of  Harnack,  according  to  which  Irenaeus  was 
born  probably  as  early  as  135,  and  may  have  been  born  earlier. 

2  It  may  be  objected  that  the  letter  must  have  been  such  that  Florinus  could  use 
it  against  Irenaeus,  or  Florinus  would  have  suppressed  it.     But  to  say  that  is  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  contents  of  the  letter  would  be  used  in  other  ways.     If  Florinus 
attempted  to  suppress  it,  such  an  action  would  only  lead  to  a  re-writing  of  the  substance 
of  the  letter.     Most  probably  the  letter  originally  was  an  open  communication,  and 
we  must  believe  its  presentation  of  affairs  for  the  middle  of  the  second  century  to  have 
been  essentially  correct. 

477 


28  HISTOEICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

3.  Here,  then,  as  in  the  case  of  the  letter  to  Victor,  we  discover  that  the 
testimony  which  we  gain  from  Irenaeus  is  that  which  comes  from  Polycarp 
and  reaches  back  to  the  close  of  the  first  century.     Perhaps  the  early  date 
of  the  testimony  is  somewhat  more  certain  in  this  case  than  it  was  in  the 
other,  for  Florinus  was  in  a  better  position  to  know  Asia  and  its  thought  at 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  than  any  of  the  Roman  Christians  were. 
At  least,  we  do  not  know  that  Victor,  or  any  of  those  in  Rome  in  his  time, 
had  lived  in  Asia  at  the  middle  of  the  century  as  Florinus  had.     If  Victor 
had  lived  there  in  his  early  life,  Irenaeus  would  have  been  likely  to  refer 
to  the  fact  in  the  letter  to  him,  just  as  he  referred  to  Florinus'  life  there. 
Florinus  had  been  closely  associated  with  Polycarp,  and  what  Florinus 
recognized  as  coming  from  Polycarp  was  well  authenticated. 

4.  There  is  one  important  datum  in  this  letter  which  is  not  brought  out 
into  the  same  relief  in  the  letter  to  Victor.    It  is  the  fact  that  one  link  made 
the  connection  between  Florinus  and  Irenaeus,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
apostles  on  the  other.    The  link  is  perhaps  implicit  in  the  letter  to  Victor, 
but  it  has  not  the  certainty  there  which  appears  here.     Here  it  is  expressly 
said  that  Polycarp  and  other  presbyters  were  associated  with  the  apostles 
and  later  were  associated  with  Florinus.     The  significance  of  this  is  two- 
fold: it  introduces  the  word  " presbyter,"  and  thus  shows  a  point  of  contact 
with  the  other  presbyter  testimony,  which  will  be  considered  later;    and, 
more   important,  it  means  that  Florinus  recognized  that  the  testimony 
which  he  had  received  from  Polycarp  he  had  received  at  first  hand.     He 
knew  whether  Polycarp  had  spoken  to  him  of  things  which  Polycarp  had 
received  from  John  and  other  apostles.     Irenaeus  and  Florinus  both  knew 
whether  communication  had  passed  between  them  concerning  the  things 
which  Florinus  had  received  from  Polycarp.     When  Irenaeus  appealed  to 
Florinus,  therefore,  he  did  it  assuming  a  background  created  by  such  com- 
munication.    If  we  had  the  letter  entire,  we  should  probably  find  in  the 
first  part  of  it  some  reference  to  such  communication. 

Irenaeus'  statements  concerning  Polycarp  in  Heresies  3 . 3 . 4  do  not  add 
very  materially  to  the  data  already  found  in  these  two  letters,  as  far  as  the 
questions  raised  by  the  fourth  gospel  are  concerned.  That  they  do  not  is 
natural,  or  even  an  indirect  evidence  of  the  spontaneity  and  genuineness  of 
both.  The  discussion  here  is  a  general  one,  most  of  the  readers  of  which 
would  not  be  in  a  position  to  verify  details  concerning  Polycarp.  There- 
fore Irenaeus  did  not  attempt  to  enter  into  details.  A  comprehensive  state- 
ment served  his  purpose. 

There  are  two  phrases  in  the  passage,  however,  that  may  be  worth 
noting.  One  of  these  is  the  statement  that  Polycarp  was  bishop  of  the 

478 


IKENAEUS    TESTIMONY   TO   THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  29 

church  in  Smyrna.  This  is  of  some  importance  because  it  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  he  occupied  an  important  place  in  Asia  and  was  therefore  in 
a  position  to  know  well  of  Asian  men  and  affairs. 

A  more  important  assertion,  perhaps,  is,  that  the  things  of  which  Ire- 
naeus  wrote  were  attested  by  all  the  churches  of  Asia  and  by  the  (episcopal) 
successors  of  Polycarp  to  Irenaeus'  own  day.  A  statement  like  this  would 
soon  be  read  in  Asia,  and  some  of  the  Christians  there  would  be  able  to 
know  whether  the  statement  was  correct.  Irenaeus  wrote  with  the  knowl- 
edge that  this  would  occur.  He  must  have  had  good  authority  for  the  asser- 
tion. Thus  the  statement  becomes  another  assurance  that  Irenaeus  was 
so  fully  in  communication  with  Asia  that  he  could  appeal  directly  to  Asian 
conditions. 

Altogether,  the  letter  to  Victor,  the  letter  to  Florinus,  and  the  passage 
in  the  Heresies  are  in  accord,  at  the  same  time  that  they  give  sufficiently 
different  details  to  show  that  they  were  spontaneous  statements,  called  out 
by  different  sets  of  conditions.  Their  agreements  and,  at  the  same  time, 
their  supplementary  nature  corroborate  their  trustworthiness  which  has 
been  assured  on  independent  grounds.  They  tell  us  of  the  place  which 
Polycarp  and  those  associated  with  him  occupied  at  the  close  of  the  first 
century,  and  they  convey  an  account  of  some  of  the  most  important  things 
which  were  then  being  said. 

Especially,  these  writings  tell  us  of  the  Asian  John  and  of  what  Asia 
thought  of  Johannine  writings.  What  is  thus  preserved  for  us  concerning 
John  and  the  Johannine  writings  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  see,  no  longer 
on  the  basis  of  testimony  from  the  close  of  the  second  century  alone,  but 
also  on  the  assurance  of  that  testimony  traced  back  to  the  close  of  the  first 
century  and  verified  as  the  testimony  of  that  earlier  time.  The  findings 
from  the  testimony  may  be  summed  up  as  follows: 

I.  John  the  disciple  is  now  an  apostle  on  the  authority  of  Polycarp,  as 
the  following  considerations  taken  together  show. 

Both  the  letter  to  Victor  and  that  to  Florinus  refer  to  the  way  in  which 
Polycarp  used  to  speak  of  John  the  disciple  of  Jesus.  In  the  letter  to  Victor 
Polycarp  made  this  John  specifically  an  apostle.  There  is  no  discussion  in 
either  of  the  letters  as  to  whether  the  John  so  mentioned  was  an  apostle; 
that  he  was  one  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  Jesus  appears  to  have  been  taken 
for  granted.  Whether  he  was  such  an  apostle  or  not  Polycarp  had  been 
in  a  position  to  know.  The  John  so  mentioned,  as  Harnack  has  pointed 
out  (Chron.  I,  656),  was  a  man  of  marked  distinction.  At  the  same  time, 
as  we  have  already  seen  (chap,  ii),  Irenaeus,  whose  thought  in  the  letters 
before  us,  as  we  have  further  seen,  was  the  testimony  of  Polycarp,  knew  the 

479 


30  HISTOBICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

celebrated  John  of  Asia  only  as  the  son  of  Zebedee.  All  these  several  data 
are  explained,  if  Florinus,  the  Christians  in  Rome,  Irenaeus,  and  those  who 
were  associated  with  these  men  learned  from  PoJycarp  that  he  had  been 
associated  in  Asia  Minor  with  the  son  of  Zebedee  and  did  not  learn  from 
him  of  any  other  eminent  John.  It  is  natural  to  conclude,  therefore,  that 
the  celebrated  John  of  Asia  was  the  son  of  Zebedee.1 

*  The  argument  of  de  Boor  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  V,  2)  to  the  effect  that 
the  death  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  occurred  in  Palestine  at  about  the  middle  of  the 
first  century  does  not  rest  upon  such  early  and  trustworthy  testimony  as  that  of  Polycarp 
through  Irenaeus,  which  has  led  to  the  conclusion  that  John  resided  in  Asia  Minor 
till  near  the  close  of  the  century.  Even  the  fragments  of  Georgius  Hamartolus  and 
Philippus  Sidetes,  though  they  both  say  that  John  suffered  death  at  the  hands  of  Jews, 
do  not  agree  in  the  significant  parts  of  the  statement;  and  neither  one  locates  the  death 
of  John  in  Palestine.  These  fragments,  therefore,  when  all  the  evidence  is  taken  into 
account,  are  unsatisfactory  evidence  for  the  early  martyrdom  of  John.  At  the  same 
time,  their  existence  at  a  later  period  may  be  readily  explained;  they  are  the  variant 
traditions,  it  would  seem,  which  developed  during  the  later  decades,  variants  which 
naturally  appeared  as  the  tradition  became  separated  from  those  who  had  been  person- 
ally associated  with  apostolic  leaders. 

The  remainder  of  the  possible  evidence  for  the  death  of  John  in  Palestine  at  an 
early  date  is  still  less  convincing.  Of  this  evidence,  Mark  10:39  ano^  the  parallel 
account  in  Matthew  (20:22)  are  perhaps  the  best,  but  the  arguments  from  the  state- 
ments (e.  g.,  that  of  Bacon  on  "The  Martyr  Apostles"  in  The  Expositor  for  Septem- 
ber, 1907)  lack  cogency.  In  Mark  the  tenses  of  the  significant  verbs  are  probably 
sufficient  alone  to  indicate  that  the  second  evangelist  did  not  understand  Jesus'  language 
to  refer  to  martyrdom,  for  Jesus  is  made  to  speak  of  the  cup  which  "I  am  drinking" 
and  the  baptism  with  which  "I  am  being  baptized,"  both  verbs  being  presents  and 
probably  progressive  presents.  Accordingly,  the  cup  of  which  Jesus  was  thinking 
for  himself,  and  the  one  which  he  predicted  for  James  and  John,  was  one  which  was  to 
be  drunk  by  living  rather  than  by  dying;  if  its  outcome  should  prove  to  be  death,  that 
was  merely  incidental.  The  emphatic  element  in  the  language  of  Mark  is  that  James 
and  John  must  be  prepared  to  do  in  the  future  what  Jesus  was  doing  at  the  time  he 
was  speaking;  they  must  be  prepared  to  live  as  he  was  living,  whatever  might  be  the 
result.  In  Matthew  the  verb  does  appear  to  indicate  that  the  evangelist  put  Jesus' 
cup  beyond  the  time  when  Jesus  was  speaking,  though  /iAXw  does  not  always  have 
the  future  idea  and  does  not  necessarily  have  it  here.  Let  us  assume,  however,  that 
it  is  future  in  this  case.  Then  the  Matthew  change  of  the  Mark  material  might  give 
a  considerable  probability  that  John  became  a  martyr  after  the  second  gospel  was 
written  but  before  the  composition  of  the  first,  if,  at  the  same  time,  we  had  no  other 
evidence  bearing  on  the  question.  But,  when  the  evidence  from  Polycarp  is  taken 
into  account,  we  are  under  obligation  to  see  whether  the  first  evangelist  may  have  been 
led  by  some  other  motive  than  the  intervening  death  of  John  to  modify  the  Mark  mate- 
rial. One  such  motive  may  have  been  that,  as  he  mentioned  only  a  "cup,"  but  not  a 
"baptism,"  so  he  may  have  concentrated  his  thought  on  the  death  of  James  and  inter- 
preted Jesus'  statement  accordingly.  Or,  he  may  have  been  controlled  by  some  other 
motive,  the  evidence  of  which  we  do  not  possess.  Bacon's  finding  that  "the  disciple 

480 


IBENAEUS   TESTIMONY   TO   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL  31 

II.  The  testimony  from  Polycarp  offers  suggestive  material  concerning 
the  Johannine  writings  as  well  as  concerning  the  Asian  John. 

In  the  letter  to  Florinus,  from  which  quotation  has  been  made  above 
(p.  26),  there  occurs  the  following  statement:  6  HoAvKapTros  aTnjyyeAAe 
Travra.  <™/u,<£a>va  rats  ypa^ats.  The  Travra,  as  a  reading  of  the  letter  shows, 
were  the  details  of  the  stories  which  Polycarp  used  to  relate  concerning 

whom  Jesus  loved"  was  Paul  (The  Expositor,  October,  1907)  is  highly  ingenious, 
but  not  convincing.  His  discussion  probably  merely  carries  appreciation  of  the  actual 
symbolism  of  the  New  Testament  to  an  absurdity. 

The  omission  of  John's  name  from  the  letters  of  Ignatius  is  most  easily  explained 
by  a  residence  of  John  in  Asia  and  his  natural  death  there.  If  John  lived  in  Asia  and 
died  there  a  natural  death,  Ignatius  could  not  have  introduced  his  name  into  the  letters 
as  he  introduced  the  names  of  Paul  and  Peter,  for  he  wrote  of  both  as  martyrs  (Rom. 
4:3;  Eph.  12:2).  Aside  from  Paul  and  Peter,  he  named  only  living  Christians.  Peter 
and  Paul  were  not  named  in  any  one  of  the  remaining  five  of  his  letters.  This  might 
appear  to  indicate  that,  if  we  did  not  have  his  letters  to  the  Romans  and  to  the  Ephe- 
sians,  we  should  be  justified  in  concluding  that  he  did  not  know  Peter  and  Paul  had 
been  in  Rome;  but  the  mere  statement  of  such  a  conclusion  shows  how  untrustworthy 
it  would  be.  Even  great  men  are  not  mentioned  on  all  occasions  and  in  every  letter. 
Ignatius  did  not  mention  John  because  the  nature  of  the  letters  he  was  writing  was 
not  such  as  to  lead  to  such  a  mention. 

In  a  similar  way  Polycarp's  mention  of  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Philippians  without 
a  mention  of  John  is  readily  accounted  for.  In  one  case  (9.1,  2),  he,  like  Ignatius, 
spoke  of  Paul  as  a  martyr.  In  the  other  two  references  (3 : 2  and  11.2,  3)  Paul's  letter 
to  the  Philippians  was  the  occasion  of  the  mention.  If,  then,  John  lived  in  Asia  for  a 
time,  died  a  natural  death,  and  did  not  write  a  letter  to  the  Philippians,  Polycarp 
could  not  have  mentioned  John  as  he  mentioned  Paul.  We  can  hardly  assume  that  a 
letter  from  Polycarp  to  the  Philippians  must  have  mentioned  John  in  any  case.  The 
lack  of  mention  in  the  letter  we  have  is  accounted  for  if  we  assume  that  John  did  not 
die  a  martyr  and  did  not  write  to  the  Philippians. 

Papias'  statement  preserved  by  Eusebius  (H.  E.  3 . 39 . 3,  4)  probably  corroborates 
the  theory  that  there  was  only  one  celebrated  John  in  Asia  and  that  this  John  was 
the  son  of  Zebedee.  This  often-discussed  statement  includes  the  name  John  twice, 
but  in  each  case  it  is  applied  to  a  presbyter.  Eusebius,  in  his  unfortunate  guess  con- 
cerning the  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse,  had  to  interpret  Papias'  language  to  mean 
that  Papias  knew  two  Johns  and  located  both  of  these  in  Asia.  Papias  certainly  did 
not  say  this,  and  his  language  does  not  require  such  an  interpretation.  In  the  fact 
that  the  name  John  is  each  time  given  to  a  presbyter,  together  with  the  form  of  the 
verbs,  is  to  be  found  the  key  to  the  language.  The  significant  words  are  as  follows: 
Et  5e"  TTOV  Kal  Trapt}KO\o\)6iriK<j}S  ns  rots  7rpe(T/3u  repots  e\#oi,  TOI)S  TUV  irpefffivrtpuv  av- 
tKpivov  \6yovs  •  rl  ' Avdptas  ....  elirev  .  .  .  .  4)  rl  'ludvvrjs  ....  <X  re  ' Apiffrldtv 
xal  6  irpefffivrepos  'Iwdwys  ....  \4yovffiv.  A  comparatively  simple  interpretation 
of  the  somewhat  ambiguous  language  is  this :  At  the  time  of  which  Papias  was  writing 
— i.  e.,  near  the  close  of  the  first  century — Andrew  and  the  other  presbyters  named  in 
the  first  part  of  the  sentence,  except  John,  were  dead,  and  their  younger  associates, 
who  told  Papias  of  what  they  had  said,  spoke  of  each  one  in  the  past  tense  (tiircv). 

481 


32  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

Jesus'  life  and  teachings,  as  he  had  heard  them  from  John  and  others  who 
had  associated  with  Jesus.  It  is  of  great  importance,  therefore,  to  deter- 
mine what  these  writings  were  in  harmony  with  which  Polycarp  used  to 
speak  of  Jesus'  deeds  and  words.  For  this  determination  we  must  be 
guided  by  a  consideration  of  the  different  possible  meanings  which  rat? 
ypa^ais  may  have  in  such  a  connection  as  that  in  which  the  expression  here 
occurs. 

The  presence  of  the  article  without  any  other  limitation  of  the  noun 
indicates  either  that  these  were  writings  already  mentioned  in  the  preceding 
context,  to  which  the  article  restricts  them,  or  that  they  were  the  well- 
known  writings  which  required  no  further  description.  As  no  writings  are 
mentioned  in  the  preceding  context,  we  are  limited  to  a  consideration  of 
the  possible  well-known  writings.  These  appear  to  be  the  following: 

i.  The  writings  referred  to  were  the  well-known  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures. This  is  possible,  no  doubt,  for  Irenaeus  often  interpreted  the  Old 
Testament  statements  as  predictions  of  the  events  in  Jesus'  life.  The 
context,  however,  has  in  it  nothing  to  indicate  that  such  a  reference  was 
intended  here;  rather,  it  seems  to  assure  us  that  Irenaeus'  interest  here 

Aristion  and  John  were  still  alive,  and  the  men  who  reported  their  teachings  used  the 
present  tense  (\tyov<riv).  These  two  men  were  put  in  a  different  class,  through  a 
change  in  the  form  of  the  last  part  of  the  statement,  because  they  were  still  alive  at  the 
time  referred  to.  Aristion  seems  not  to  have  been  thought  of  as  a  presbyter;  at  any 
rate,  he  was  not  called  one.  But,  in  the  case  of  John,  the  significantly  restrictive 
6  irpeffptrepos  was  used,  apparently  referring  back  to  the  fact  that  John  had  already 
been  called  a  presbyter  and  intending  to  indicate  directly  that  this  John  was  the  same 
one  who  had  been  mentioned  in  the  first  group  and  could  now  be  mentioned  again 
because  he  belonged  also  in  the  same  class  as  Aristion. 

The  course  of  events,  accordingly,  was  somewhat  as  follows:  Papias,  in  his  early 
life,  used  to  inquire  what  the  personal  disciples  of  Jesus,  while  several  of  them  were 
still  alive,  used  to  say.  He  inquired  also  what  those  still  alive  in  his  own  time  were 
saying.  John,  in  view  of  the  advanced  age  to  which  he  attained,  belonged  to  both 
classes.  Papias,  when  he  wrote  in  later  life,  preserved  this  distinction  and  repeated 
the  descriptive  phrase  applied  to  John  to  show  that  it  was  the  same  man  who  was 
mentioned  twice.  His  testimony  is  a  testimony  to  one  John,  then,  rather  than  to  two. 
Where  this  one  lived,  either  in  the  earlier  period  or  the  later,  however,  he  did  not  say, 
for  he  did  not  locate  any  of  the  persons  whom  he  named.  Apparently  the  list  is  made 
without  reference  to  location.  Probably  it  was  made  for  other  reasons  alone,  namely, 
their  relation  to  Jesus,  as  the  language  indicates.  It  is  left  to  us,  therefore,  to  locate 
John  by  means  of  evidence  which  we  have  from  other  sources  than  Papias.  This  will 
naturally  lead  us  to  say  that,  if  Papias  spoke  of  only  one  John  and  knew  of  him  as  one 
who  had  come  to  advanced  age,  the  John  whom  he  thus  knew  will  almost  certainly  be 
the  son  of  Zebedee,  whom  the  testimony  of  Polycarp  locates  in  Asia  at  the  time  of  which 
Papias  was  speaking. 

482 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  33 

was  in  the  accounts  which  he  had  of  New  Testament  times — that  he  was 
appealing  to  history  rather  than  to  prophecy. 

2.  The  writings  referred  to  were  the  well-known  New  Testament  writ- 
ings as  a  whole.     This,  too,  appears  possible,  for,  in  the  days  of  Irenaeus, 
the  New  Testament  had  come  to  be  referred  to  in  that  manner.1     Such  a 
reference,  however,  seems  in  no  degree  probable,  for  the  New  Testament 
as  a  whole  does  not  describe  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus.     If  Irenaeus 
intended  to  refer  to  the  New  Testament  at  all,  he  could  hardly  have  had  in 
mind  more  of  it  than  the  gospels.     We  may  pass,  therefore,  to  consider 
the  possibility  of  such  a  reference,  namely, 

3.  Irenaeus  referred  to  the  well-known  gospels  of  his  own  day.     This 
may  be  resolved  into  three  possibilities : 

a.  The  four  gospels  existed  in  the  time  of  Polycarp  as  they  did  in  the 
time  of  Irenaeus.  Irenaeus  knew  this  and  carelessly  referred  to  them  at 
the  time  of  Polycarp  by  the  title  which  they  did  not  receive  till  a  generation 
or  two  later.  This  theory  has  the  serious  difficulty  that  it  must  explain 
how  the  fourth  gospel  could  have  existed  in  the  days  of  Polycarp  and  yet 
have  no  satisfactory  attestation  before  about  the  year  170.  Various  explana- 
tions of  this  phenomenon  have  been  attempted,  but,  up  to  the  present  time, 
no  satisfactory  solution  of  the  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  offered. 

b)  Irenaeus  thought  the  four  gospels  existed  in  the  time  of  Polycarp 
and  carelessly  described  them  by  the  title  of  his  own  time.  He  was  right 
as  to  the  existence  of  the  synoptic  gospels,  but  he  was  wrong  concerning  the 
fourth  gospel,  which,  if  it  existed  at  all  in  Polycarp's  day,  did  not  exist  in 
its  present  form.  This  theory  differs  from  the  preceding  in  that  (i)  it 
charges  Irenaeus  with  a  mistake  concerning  the  date  of  the  publication  of 
the  fourth  gospel  as  well  as  concerning  the  title  which  he  gave  the  gospels 
as  they  were  known  in  Polycarp's  day;  (2)  it  assumes  that  the  fourth  gospel 
was  not  published  till  after  the  time  of  Polycarp,  and  so  it  does  not  need  to 
explain  the  late  attestation;  (3)  it  has  to  explain  how  a  "Johannine" 
gospel  could  have  been  published  so  late.  Hitherto,  attempts  to  explain 
how  a  "Johannine"  gospel  could  have  only  such  late  attestation  have  either 
failed  to  give  a  satisfactory  account  of  all  the  data  involved,  especially,  per- 

1  Not  so  in  the  days  of  Polycarp.  There  is  no  instance  in  the  works  of  the  Apostolic 
Fathers  which  have  come  down  to  us  where  the  gospels,  or  any  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, or  all  of  it  together,  is  referred  to  as  "the  writings."  The  nearest  approach  to 
such  an  expression  is  in  II  Clem.  2 . 4,  where,  after  passages  from  the  Old  Testament  had 
been  quoted,  the  writer  continued:  trtpa.  8k  ypa<f>r)  X^yet,  with  a  quotation  of  part  of 
Matt.  9: 13.  Indeed,  this  is  the  only  place  in  the  Fathers  where  the  gospel  is  referred 
to  as  ypa.(p7j. 

483 


y^ 

OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY 


34  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

haps,  the  practical  absence  of  quotations  by  Justin  from  the  fourth  gospel,1 
or  have  largely  discredited  the  idea  that  the  fourth  gospel  was  any  very  direct 
production  of  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

c)  Irenaeus  knew  that  the  first  three  gospels  were  current  in  Polycarp's 
time  as  in  his  own;  he  knew  also  that  the  fourth  gospel  was  a  later  work. 
In  referring  to  the  situation  in  the  time  of  Polycarp,  he  merely  employed  the 
usage  of  his  own  time,  not  taking  the  trouble  to  state  all  the  facts  as  he  knew 
them.  This  theory  relieves  Irenaeus  from  responsibility  for  giving  an 
early  date  to  the  publication  of  the  fourth  gospel,  but  it  makes  him  respon- 
sible for  error  in  carrying  the  title  of  the  gospels  in  his  own  time  back  to 
the  time  of  Polycarp.  It,  like  the  preceding,  must  give  an  explanation  of 
the  late  appearance  of  a  "Johannine"  gospel. 

Altogether,  we  cannot  say  certainly  that  the  reference  of  Irenaeus  was 
not  to  the  well-known  gospels  of  his  own  day.  If  the  four  gospels  were  in 
existence  in  the  days  of  Polycarp,  it  would  have  been  no  very  serious  error, 
perhaps,  for  him  to  use  the  language  which  we  are  here  considering.  But, 
if  we  say  that  he  merely  employed  the  language  of  his  own  time,  we  become 
involved  in  one  of  two  serious  difficulties:  either,  (i)  we  must  explain  how 
the  fourth  gospel  could  have  been  current  in  the  days  of  Polycarp,  but  failed 
to  get  any  satisfactory  attestation  till  considerably  later,  or,  (2)  we  must 
show  how  a  "Johannine"  gospel  could  appear  after  Polycarp's  time.  In 
view  of  the  recognized  seriousness  of  these  difficulties,  especially  the  diffi- 
culty of  securing  any  common  ground  between  the  two  positions,  it  is  worth 
while  to  consider  a  further  possibility,  namely, 

4.  Irenaeus  referred  to  Johannine  writings  current  and  well-known  in 
the  days  of  Polycarp  dealing  with  the  work  and  teachings  of  Jesus,  writings 
from  which  the  fourth  gospel  was  later  compiled.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
this  is  a  real  possibility.  To  be  sure,  we  do  not  know  that  such  Johannine 
writings  existed;  if  we  did,  some  of  the  most  serious  aspects  of  the  Johan- 
nine problem  would  be  removed.  The  expression  which  Irenaeus  here 
used,  however,  may  indicate  that  there  were  such  writings.  At  any  rate, 
the  expression  suggests  a  possibility;  we  may  take  it  and  see  what  it  is  worth. 
The  following  points  are  worthy  of  notice : 

a)  If  there  were  such  Johannine  writings  current  and  well  known  in 
the  days  of  Polycarp,  then  the  expression  which  Irenaeus  used  was  a  natural 
one  with  which  to  refer  to  them;  his  language  is  as  natural  for  such  writings 
in  the  time  of  Polycarp  as  the  same  language  had  come  to  be  for  a  reference 
to  the  New  Testament  in  his  own  day. 

1  Such  references  by  Justin  as  that  in  Apology  i.  61,  for  example,  are  sufficiently 
explained  if  Justin  had  Johannine  material  but  not  the  fourth  gospel. 

484 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  35 

b)  This  hypothesis  relieves  Irenaeus  of  the  charge  of  carelessness  and 
inaccuracy  in  making  reference  to  the  writings  which  he  here  had  in  mind. 
This  is  a  comparatively  unimportant  matter,  to  be  sure,  but  still  it  is  worth 
taking  into  account.     We  have  no  occasion  to  discredit  the  man  more  than 
is  necessary.     The  presumption  ought  to  be  that  he  is  correct,  until  he  is 
shown  to  be  wrong,  and  a  theory  which  justifies  him  in  his  usage  is  prefer- 
able, if  it  meets  other  conditions  equally  well. 

c)  This  hypothesis  is  in  accord  with  what  appears  to  be  the  more 
obvious  meaning  of  Irenaeus'  language,  for  he  seems  to  say  that  Polycarp 
used  to  speak  in  harmony  with  writings  then  in  existence  which  were  then 
known  as  "the"  writings;   if  anyone  reads  the  language  without  any  pre- 
possessions as  to  what  writings  are  referred  to,  he  will  probably  reach  this 
conclusion. 

d)  If  we  look  at  the  context,  that  appears  to  indicate  that  Irenaeus  had 
in  mind  Johannine  writings,  but  not  a  single  gospel  nor  a  gospel  together 
with  our  Johannine  epistles.     The  preceding  context  tells  of  the  oral 
accounts  which  Polycarp  used  to  give  concerning  Jesus  as  Polycarp  had 
received  them  from  John.     The  contents  of  these  oral  accounts  are  indi- 
cated by  only  two  specific  terms.     These  are  at  Suva/Acts  and  17  StSaovcaAta. 
Perhaps  no  other  two  terms  alone  could  have  been  employed  which  would 
so  well  describe  the  special  characteristics  of  the  contents  of  the  fourth 
gospel  as  distinguished  from  the  contents  of  the  synoptic  accounts.     The 
point  is  not  decisive,  to  be  sure,  but  it  offers  an  interesting  suggestion.     It 
suggests  that  John  used  to  speak  especially  of  Jesus'  miracles  and  teaching, 
that  Polycarp  used  to  repeat  those  accounts,  and  that  the  terms  which 
Irenaeus  selected  to  describe  those  accounts — because  these  terms  best  find 
their  contents  in  our  fourth  gospel  at  the  same  time  that  Irenaeus  spoke  of 
"the  writings"  instead  of  "the  gospel" — are  testimony  from  the  time  of 
Polycarp  to  the  contents  of  the  fourth  gospel  as  material  which  came  from 
the  son  of  Zebedee  at  the  same  time  that  Irenaeus'  selection  of  "the  writ- 
ings, "  as  a  term  to  describe  the  written  form  of  that  material,  is  a  testimony 
to  Johannine  writings  as  embodying  that  material.    By  supposing  that  there 
were  Johannine  accounts  of  Jesus'  work  and  teaching — but  not  our  fourth 
gospel — current  in  the  time  of  Polycarp,  we  explain  the  language  of  Ire- 
naeus' letters,  both  as  to  his  selection  of  the  term  "the  writings"  and  the 
context  which  indicates  the  contents  of  that  term. 

e)  If  we  suppose  that,  in  the  time  of  Polycarp,  there  were  Johannine 
writings,  rather  than  a  Johannine  gospel,  we  gain  an  effective  key  to  the 
problem  of  the  long-recognized  "displacements"  in  our  fourth  gospel. 
This  recognition  of  displacements  implies  that,  at  some  time,  and  in  one 

485 


36  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC   STUDIES 

form  or  another,  our  gospel  existed  in  the  shape  of  "booklets,"  as  Professor 
Burton  has  happily  named  them.  These  booklets  were  produced,  we  may 
assume,  no  doubt,  with  no  thought  that  they  would  ever  form  a  single  work; 
if  the  author,  or  authors,  of  them  had  intended  a  single  work,  he,  or  they, 
would  not  have  made  booklets.  Such  booklets  very  naturally  included 
similar  material,  or  even  the  same  material,  presented  from  different  points 
of  view,  or  even  from  apparently  different  situations.  Their  compilation 
into  a  whole — after  the  usual  method  of  writing  history  of  the  time — would 
then  result  in  just  such  apparent  dislocations  and  inconsistencies  as  the 
critical  reader  may  now  find  in  the  fourth  gospel.1  But  if  we  suppose  that 
the  gospel  was  composed  as  a  single  work,  even  from  sources,  these  apparent 
dislocations  and  inconsistencies  can  hardly  be  explained  as  anything  less 
than  carelessness  or  ignorance.  The  supposition,  accordingly,  that  the 
Johannine  story  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  in  the  time  of  Polycarp, 
at  least  as  far  as  it  was  written  at  that  time,  was  in  the  form  of  separate 
booklets,  enables  us  most  easily  and  most  satisfactorily  to  account  for  an 
important  element  of  the  internal  evidence  of  the  fourth  gospel.  The  course 
of  events  leading  up  to  its  compilation,  then,  will  have  been  somewhat  as 
follows:  John  did  not  write  a  gospel  as  a  single  work.  If  he  himself  wrote 
of  Jesus  at  all,  his  writings  were  only  in  the  form  of  short  disconnected 
accounts.  Perhaps  it  is  more  probable  that  the  writing  was  done  by  one 
of  his  disciples  with  his  approval.  Such  accounts,  short  sermons  as  it  were, 
dealing  with  different  aspects  of  Jesus'  life  and  teachings  but  incidentally 
overlapping  one  another,  received  recognition  at  once,  but  were  not  thought 
of  as  a  gospel.  They  remained  in  use,  in  Asia  Minor,  at  least,  during  the 
time  of  Polycarp,  and  were  the  Johannine  writings  in  accord  with  which 
Polycarp  used  to  speak  of  the  miracles  and  teachings  of  Jesus.  Polycarp 
recognized  the  writings,  but  he  was  not  dependent  upon  them,  for  he  had 
received  the  same  accounts  from  John  himself  and  could  relate  them 
independently.  Some  time  after  this,  perhaps  about  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  such  Johannine  writings  then  current  as  would  best  serve 
the  purpose  were  compiled  into  a  gospel,  and  the  compilation  resulted  in  the 
internal  characteristics  which  have  led  scholars  to  recognize  either  dis- 
placements or  booklets  in  our  fourth  gospel. 

/)  If  the  Johannine  writings  in  the  time  of  Polycarp  were  merely  book- 
lets, we  can  readily  understand  Justin's  failure  to  quote  from  the  fourth 
gospel — there  was  no  such  gospel  until  about  the  time  he  wrote.  If  he 
knew  of  Johannine  booklets,  he  did  not  honor  them  as  he  did  the  synoptic 

1  E.  g.,  those  found  by  Bacon  as  described  in  The  American  Journal  of  Theology, 
Vol.  IV,  under  the  title  "Tatian's  Rearrangement  of  the  Fourth  Gospel." 

486 


IKENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  37 

The  increase  in  his  use  of  Johannine  material  in  the  Dialogue 
as  compared  with  that  in  the  Apology  (or  the  Apologies,  if  we  call  them 
two)  is  doubtless  due  largely  to  the  increase  in  value  for  him  of  the  Johan- 
nine material  during  the  several  years  between  the  composition  of  the  two 
works. 

g)  This  view  is  not  necessarily  out  of  harmony  with  what  Irenaeus  him- 
self wrote  of  the  authorship  of  the  gospel.  His  definite  statement  is  as 
follows  (3.1.1):  "ETreiTa  'loavn/s  6  fjuaOrjrrjs  TOV  Kv/otov,  6  KCU  €TTI  TO 
avrou  ava7re<ra)v,  /cat  avros  e^eSwKe  TO  evayyeAiov,  cv  'E^>€o*a»  T^? 
&MTpi{$<av.  The  KCU  avTos,  as  an  emphatic  repetition  of  'Iwavnys,  in-A., 
plus  the  article  with  cuayyeXiov  show  that  Irenaeus  understood  the  work 
of  the  evangelist  to  have  been  merely  to  give  his  individual  form  to  the 
common  gospel  story.  This  is  usually  understood  to  mean  that  Irenaeus 
made  John  the  immediate  author  of  the  fourth  gospel  in  the  form  in  which 
Irenaeus  had  it.  But  the  statement  itself  may  mean  much  less  than  that. 
If  it  is  compared  with  the  immediately  preceding  statements  concerning 
the  authorship  of  the  other  gospels,  one  will  see  that  Irenaeus  seems  to  have 
made  each  of  the  other  evangelists  a  writer  of  a  completed  gospel  (Matthew 
ypa<f>r)v  e^vey/ccy  €vayyeA.iov ;  Mark  eyypa^xos  rjfuv  Tra/oaSe'SoKe;  Luke 
TO  ....  evayyeXiov  cv  /2i/3A.ia>  KaTOceTo),  while  John  simply  ^cSw/ce  TO 
cvayyeA.tov.  Was  this  Irenaeus'  way  of  saying  that  John  did  not  prepare 
a  complete  gospel  but  merely  left  gospel  material  ?  That  may  hardly  be 
asserted,  but  it  is  certainly  a  possibility,  and  it  is  truly  suggestive.  Ire- 
naeus' language  is  capable  of  that  meaning,  and  such  a  meaning  put  upon 
it  allows  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  gospel  which  will  explain  its  late 
attestation,  its  Johannine  character,  and  Irenaeus'  substantial  accuracy — 
three  data  which  the  evidence  as  a  whole  has  required  us  to  reconcile,  if 
such  a  reconcilation  may  be  fairly  secured. 

Two  objections  will  doubtless  be  offered  against  this  interpretation  of 
Irenaeus'  language.  It  will  be  said  that  I  have  freely  charged  him  (p.  24) 
with  a  mistake  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  third  gospel,  while  I  now 
attempt  to  explain  away  the  ordinarily  accepted  meaning  of  his  accom- 
panying statement  concerning  the  fourth  gospel.  But  the  two  cases  are 
not  at  all  parallel.  Irenaeus'  mistake  concerning  the  third  gospel  has  been 
recognized  on  grounds  independent  of  Irenaeus,  who  was  much  farther 
removed  from  the  writing  of  the  third  gospel  than  from  the  writing  of  the 
fourth,  and  is  much  more  likely  not  to  have  had  accurate  information  con- 
cerning the  third.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  the  fourth  gospel,  difficulties 
concerning  it  which  are  recognized  by  scholars  on  grounds  independent  of 
Irenaeus  are  best  explained  by  accepting  his  statement  concerning  it  as  an 

487 


38  HISTOEICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

accurate  one,  the  correct  interpretation  of  which  I  have  just  indicated.  It 
is  entirely  possible,  therefore,  that  Irenaeus'  concise  statement  concerning 
the  fourth  gospel  is  the  outcome  of  direct  knowledge  of  its  origin.  Consid- 
erations to  be  advanced  later,  as  well  as  those  already  advanced,  support 
this  view  of  the  questions  at  issue. 

The  other  objection  will  be  that  Irenaeus  often  quoted  the  fourth  gospel 
as  the  actual  language  of  John,  which  he  ought  not  to  have  done  if  he  knew 
that  John  himself  did  not  write  the  gospel  or  even  booklets  from  which  it 
was  compiled.  The  natural  reply  is  that,  on  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
gospel  which  I  have  proposed,  John  was  sufficiently  responsible  for  the 
language  of  the  gospel  for  Irenaeus  to  have  felt  entire  freedom  in  quoting 
it  as  John's,  at  least  for  such  purposes  as  he  had  in  mind. 

This  discussion  of  rats  ypa^ats  may  now  be  summed  up  as  a  whole. 
The  term  was  recognized  in  the  time  of  Irenaeus  as  a  title  for  the  gospels, 
and  he  may  have  applied  it  to  the  gospels  in  the  time  of  Polycarp,  assuming, 
correctly  or  incorrectly,  that  they  did  so  exist.  To  say  that  he  did  this, 
however,  involves  us  in  serious  difficulty  concerning  the  fourth  gospel,  a 
difficulty  which  hitherto  has  not  been  satisfactorily  met,  namely,  to  explain 
either  (i)  how  our  fourth  gospel  could  have  existed  in  the  days  of  Polycarp 
as  it  existed  in  the  days  of  Irenaeus  without  getting  any  attestation  till 
about  the  year  170,  or  (2)  how  a  Johannine  gospel  could  have  appeared 
only  after  Polycarp's  time,  in  which  case  its  late  attestation  would  be 
explained  by  its  late  appearance.  In  short,  to  interpret  Irenaeus'  refer- 
ence to  "the  writings"  as  a  reference  to  the  gospels  is  linguistically 
possible,  but  such  an  interpretation  leaves  us  in  historical  diffi- 
culties. 

The  expression  is  equally  explicable  linguistically,  however,  as  a  refer- 
ence to  Johannine  writings  current  in  Polycarp's  day;  if  there  were  such 
writings,  the  expression  is  the  natural  one  for  Irenaeus  to  have  used  to  de- 
scribe them.  By  assuming  that  there  were  such  writings,  therefore,  we  are 
able  to  avoid  the  historical  difficulties  at  the  same  time  that  we  show  due 
regard  to  linguistic  usage.  Especially,  we  find  an  explanation  for  the  serious 
difficulty  offered  by  the  external  evidence,  namely,  an  explanation  of  a 
Johannine  gospel  with  only  late  second-century  attestation.  At  the  same 
time,  we  find  also  a  key  to  the  problem  of  the  internal  evidence  offered  by 
the  so-called  displacements,  a  key  which  is  at  once  simpler  and  far  less 
arbitrary  than  any  other,  and  one  by  means  of  which  we  avoid  depreciating 
the  work  of  either  author  or  editor  of  the  gospel.  No  single  item  of  the 
evidence  warrants  the  conclusion  which  has  been  reached,  but  the  ready 
combination,  on  this  theory,  of  all  the  elements  of  the  evidence  in  such  a 

488 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  39 

manner  as  to  seem  to  solve  the  problem  which  has  been  before  us  offers  a 
strong  probability  that  the  conclusion  is  correct.1 

This  testimony  from  Polycarp  warrants  a  still  further  statement  con- 
cerning the  Johannine  writings  as  they  were  known  in  Asia  in  Polycarp's 
time.  As  the  testimony  led  above  (p.  30)  to  the  conclusion  that  Polycarp 
and  those  who  received  their  information  from  him  knew  of  only  one  John 
of  prominence  in  Asia  at  the  close  of  the  first  century,  so  here  it  implies 
that  Polycarp  and  the  rest  knew  of  only  one  author  for  the  Johannine  writ- 
ings. The  only  Johannine  writer  of  whom  they  knew  was  the  son  of 
Zebedee.  The  opinion  that  the  Johannine  writings  came  from  him  was  a 
uniform  one.  The  very  absence  of  discussion  of  the  question  is  doubtless 
one  reason  why  we  do  not  have  any  more  data  bearing  on  the  question.  If 
there  had  been  a  difference  of  view  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  Johan- 
nine writings,  such,  e.  g.,  as  there  was  concerning  the  observance  of  Easter, 
it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  we  should  have  inherited  some  accounts  of  the 
differences,  as  we  have  in  the  case  of  the  differences  about  Easter.  The 
testimony  of  the  second  century  knows  no  such  difference  of  views,  and  the 
recognition  of  this  fact  is  highly  important.2 

1  It  may  seem  that,  in  this  interpretation  of   rats  7pa0cuj,  Irenaeus  has  been 
credited  with  an  accuracy  in  the  use  of  language  out  of  harmony  with  the  looseness 
which  has  been  attributed  to  him  earlier  in  the  discussion  (pp.  13,  18,  20  22).    But 
such  an  objection  probably  misses  the  real  significance  of  the  expression.     It  is  hardly 
one  which  would  have  been  chosen  with  conscious  carefulness.     Rather,  it  is  an  ordinary 
Greek  usage,  under  such  conditions  as  this  letter  seems  to  involve.     If  Irenaeus  had 
written  with  conscious  effort  to  be  accurate,  he  would  probably  have  employed  some 
fuller  expression,  which  would  have  revealed  his  endeavor  to  avoid  any  uncertainty  in  his 
meaning.     In  his  unconsciousness  of  such  effort  he  embodied  accuracy  in  simplicity — 
if  the  above  interpretation  is  correct — because  an  ordinary  phrase  was  the  one  to  ac- 
complish that. 

2  The  statement  of  Epiphanius  (51 .3)  that  the  Alogi  attributed  the  fourth  gospel 
to  Cerinthus  is  not  a  serious  matter.     Irenaeus  wrote  two  centuries  earlier  than  Epi- 
phanius and  was  one  of  Epiphanius'  chief  sources;   but  he  did  not  know  anything  of 
this  Alogi  claim.     Instead,  he  understood  (3.11.1)  that  the  fourth  gospel  was  written 
against  Cerinthus  (which  might  be  true  of  booklets  as  well  as  of  a  complete  gospel,  of 
course).     Epiphanius  did  not  find  in  Irenaeus  anything  concerning  the  Cerinthian 
authorship  of  the  gospel,  and   his  statement  certainly  cannot  weigh  against  that  of 
Irenaeus.     In  addition  to  the  fact  that  Epiphanius  was  so  much  later  than  Irenaeus, 
one  has  only  to  read  his  language  to  recognize  that  he  was  an  intemperate  and  prejudiced 
writer  and  to  discount  his  statement  for  that  reason  as  well  as  for  its  lateness.     Still 
further,  and  perhaps  even  more  important,  Epiphanius  lumped  the  Alogi — i.  e.,  those 
to  whom  he  gave  the  name  Alogi,  for  he  says  he  coined  the  name — all  together  without 
regard  to  the  chronological  development  of  the  movement  which  he  had  in  mind.    As 
far  as  his  statement  is  concerned,  the  attributing  of  the  fourth  gospel  to  Cerinthus 
might  have  occurred  only  after  the  time  of  Irenaeus.     That  is  doubtless  the  fact.     The 

489 


40  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

This  evaluation  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  concerning  Polycarp,  from 
which  we  discover  that  when  Irenaeus  spoke  of  Polycarp  and  his  relations 
to  John  he  was  speaking  on  the  basis  of  trustworthy  information,  brings  us 
to  a  position  where  we  can  see  the  significance  of  two  interesting  passages 
in  the  Heresies  which  have  often  been  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of  the 
student  of  the  fourth  gospel. 

One  of  these  is  the  well-known  passage  at  the  close  of  3.1.1,  which 
has  already  been  quoted  (p.  37).  Taken  by  itself,  this  may  appear  to  be  a 
statement  without  any  sufficient  historical  knowledge,  and  the  context  does 
not  give  it  any  more  definite  support.  But  if  it  is  read  in  the  light  of  the 
above  discussion  of  the  relation  between  Irenaeus  and  Polycarp,  it,  like  the 
statements  of  the  two  letters,  may  be  regarded  as  substantially  the  testimony 
of  Polycarp.  What  Irenaeus  said  concerning  John  in  this  case  he  received 
through  Polycarp,  just  as  he  had  received  through  Polycarp  what  he  put 
into  the  letters. 

Putting  together  the  results  up  to  this  point,  we  shall  see  them  to  mean 
that  the  fourth  gospel,  though  it  came  into  existence  some  decades  later 
than  the  synoptic  gospels,  had  a  history  in  some  respects  similar  to  theirs, 
at  any  rate  similar  to  the  history  of  the  first  and  third.  It  came  into  exis- 
tence as  a  compilation  and  passed  through  an  editorial  stage. 

The  second  passage  in  the  Heresies  on  which  the  above  discussion  of 
Irenaeus'  relation  to  Polycarp  throws  light,  is  the  statement  in  3.11.1  a, 
already  referred  to  in  another  connection  (p.  39,  footnote  2),  according  to 
which  Irenaeus  understood  that  John  wrote  the  fourth  gospel  "aujerre  eum 
qui  Cerintho  insemininatus  erat  hominibus  err  or  em,  et  multo  prius  ab  his 
qui  dicuntur  Nicolaitae"  If  Irenaeus  had  no  trustworthy  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  the  gospel,  then  such  a  statement  from  him  could  be 
no  more  than  a  conjecture,  an  after-thought,  a  theory  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  in  the  prologue  of  the  gospel  he  found  material  which  served  as 
excellent  apologetic  against  the  Cerinthians. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  as  the  above  discussion  has  endeavored  to  show, 
Irenaeus  was  not  theorizing  but  was  writing  on  the  basis  of  trustworthy 

untrustworthiness  of  his  statement  as  representing  a  fact  of  the  second  century  is  made 
more  certain  in  that  Epiphanius  himself  says  the  Alogi  claim  was  a  pretense  (irpo<j>a<ri- 
{ovrai  yap  oZroi  ai<rxvv6fjievoi  avriXfyeiv  r£  aytip  'Iwdttvy').  This  implies  a  discus- 
sion of  the  matter.  If  such  a  discussion  occurred  as  early  as  the  time  of  Irenaeus, 
his  statement  in  3 .  n .  i,  without  any  reference  to  such  a  discussion,  is  a  psychological 
impossibility,  for  he  would  not  have  let  pass  any  such  occasion  to  oppose  those  who 
attacked  the  views  which  he  held.  We  are  quite  safe  in  saying  that  the  Alogi  claim, 
whatever  there  was  in  it,  was  of  later  date  than  Irenaeus  and  is  of  no  value  in  comparison 
with  what  he  gives  us. 

490 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  41 

information;  if  Polycarp  had  said  within  his  hearing,  had  told  Florinus, 
had  related  to  the  Roman  Christians,  that  John  had  spoken  and  written 
against  Cerinthus,  then  we  can  readily  understand  why  Irenaeus  merely 
made  the  statement  without  any  attempt  to  prove  it.  If  Polycarp  had 
related  the  same  facts  to  others  as  well  as  to  Irenaeus,  Florinus,  and  the 
Roman  Christians — as  would  have  been  most  natural,  if  he  used  to  tell 
the  story  at  all — some  of  these  would  be  younger  than  himself  but  older 
than  Florinus  and  would  easily  have  met  with  Irenaeus  and  recounted  the 
facts.  Now  none  of  these  hypotheses  is  impossible,  or  even  improbable, 
and  when  their  probability  is  taken  into  account,  we  discover  the  reason 
for  the  simplicity  of  Irenaeus'  narrative.  He  was  writing  for  his  own 
generation,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  things  which  were  generally 
recognized  needed  any  lengthy  proof.  He  chose  to  employ  himself  in  the 
discussion  of  matters  over  which  there  was  division  of  opinion.1 

Thus  far  this  chapter  has  been  an  examination  of  the  testimony  from 
Irenaeus  as  contained  in  his  statements  concerning  Polycarp.  There 
remains  an  examination  of  what  he  wrote  concerning  the  presbyters,  for 
his  relation  to  John  and  the  fourth  gospel  hinges  on  what  he  knew  through 
these  as  well  as  on  what  he  knew  through  Polycarp.  The  relationship  is 
not  so  apparent,  perhaps,  in  the  presbyter  testimony  as  it  is  in  that  from 

1  This  absence  of  statement  on  the  part  of  Irenaeus  concerning  matters  of  which 
we  should  be  glad  to  have  his  testimony  at  length  is  an  aspect  of  his  writings  by  means 
of  which  critics  have  often  been  led  astray.  They  find  Irenaeus  arguing  at  length  over 
the  meaning  of  New  Testament  language  (e.  g.,  2.22),  and  it  is  inferred  that  similar 
arguments  ought  to  appear  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  New  Testament  writings. 
For  example,  it  is  urged  that  because  Irenaeus  did  not  say  anything  more  about  the 
authorship  of  the  fourth  gospel  he  did  not  know  anything  more  about  it.  But  to  urge 
this  is  to  overlook  the  fact  that  Irenaeus  was  writing  an  apology  for  his  own  times,  not 
a  New  Testament  introduction.  It  reveals  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  conditions  at 
the  time  when  Irenaeus  wrote.  Because  Irenaeus  wrote  without  citing  his  authorities 
and  proving  that  they  were  trustworthy,  he  appears  often  to  have  written  without 
authority.  But  when  his  relation  to  Polycarp  and  those  of  Polycarp's  time  is  taken  into 
account,  one  discovers  that  he  had  such  first-hand  authority  as  not  to  be  aware  that  he 
needed  to  present  it,  especially  in  a  work  which  was  written  for  another  purpose. 

Sometimes  the  critic  not  only  fails  to  recognize  that  Irenaeus  was  not  concerned  to 
discuss  questions  of  authorship,  but  makes  him  concerned  primarily  in  authorship. 
The  discussion  of  Bacon  in  the  first  volume  of  The  Hibbert  Journal  is  a  conspicuous 
example  of  this  error.  "Irenaeus,  passionate  advocate  of  the  Johannine  authorship" 
of  the  fourth  gospel,  is  Bacon's  language  (p.  515).  When,  a  little  later  (pp.  516,  517), 
he  offers  an  explanation  for  his  conclusion,  he  writes:  "Irenaeus  literally  'compasses 
heaven  and  earth'  to  find  an  argument  against  those  who  denied  the  apostolic  author- 
ship. Because  there  are  four  winds,  four  elements,  four  zones  of  the  earth,  four  pillars 
of  heaven,  four  cherubim  sustaining  the  throne  of  God,  the  folly  is  manifest  of  'those 

491 


42  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

Polycarp,  but  it  is  hardly  less  worthy  of  consideration  because  not  so  appar- 
ent. Through  it  we  are  able  to  reconstruct  the  historical  situation  in  which 
Irenaeus  lived  more  generally  and  on  a  larger  scale  than  we  can  through 
that  from  Polycarp.  Accordingly,  even  though  some  of  the  discussion 
may  appear  to  be  remote  from  John  and  the  fourth  gospel,  such  is  not 
really  the  case,  and  its  apparent  remoteness  must  not  prejudge  the 
examination. 

This  presbyter  testimony  is  contained  in  twenty-three  references  which 
Irenaeus  made  to  unnamed  authorities,  as  follows  (a  more  complete  list 
of  these  references  than  has  heretofore  been  given,  I  believe):  i.  pref.  2a; 
1.13.3*7  1.15.6;  2.22.5C;  3.17.4*7  3-23-30;  4-P-2&;  4.4-26;  4.27. la; 
4.27.1*7  4.27.267  4.28.16;  4.30.1*1;  4-3I-Ifl;  4-32-ia;  4-41  -20; 
5.5.1*7  5. 17. AC;  5.30.1*1;  5.33.36;  5.36.1*7  5-36-26;  Eus.  H.  E.  5 . 20 . 
A  discussion  of  the  meaning  of  each  of  these  references  would  require  a 
larger  amount  of  space  than  may  well  be  given  to  it  in  this  essay.  Indeed, 
such  a  discussion  is  unnecessary,  for  the  studies  of  Lightfoot  (Biblical 
Essays,  pp.  45  ff.),  Harnack  (Chron.  I,  pp.  333  ff.),  andZahn  (Forschungen, 
VI,  pp.  53  ff.)  have  already  covered  much  of  the  ground  with  thoroughness. 
I  shall  merely  state  their  respective  conclusions,  therefore,  that  their  posi- 
tions may  be  understood,  and  shall  then  deal  only  with  what  appear  to  be 

wretched  men  who  wish  to  set  aside  that  aspect  presented  by  John's  gospel. '  "  The 
reference  is  to  Heresies  3.11.4-9.  The  reader  will  observe,  even  from  the  summary 
of  Bacon — which  is  none  too  just  toward  Irenaeus'  own  language — that  Irenaeus  was 
insisting  that  the  gospels  were  four  in  number,  but  was  not  discussing  the  question  of 
gospel  authorship.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  fourth  gospel,  it  was  the  things  presented 
by  the  gospel  which  Irenaeus'  opponents  were  setting  aside,  not  its  Johannine  author- 
ship. The  question  of  authorship  is  not  mentioned.  If  the  reader  will  examine  the 
extended  discussion  of  Irenaeus  itself  he  will  probably  conclude  that  the  absence  of  a 
discussion  of  authorship  is  more  marked  than  my  brief  statement  has  made  it.  He 
will  observe  that  Bacon  has  mistaken  general  apologetic  for  a  discussion  of  authorship. 
The  important  work  of  Drummond  (An  Inquiry  into  the  Character  and  Authorship 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  1904)  fails  to  do  justice  to  Irenaeus,  but  in  another  way.  In 
summing  up  the  results  of  a  study  of  the  letter  to  Florinus,  Drummond  finds  only  that 
Irenaeus  "professes  to  have  the  most  distinct  recollection"  of  the  discourses  of  Polycarp 
(p.  208),  and  that  "one  thing  appears  to  be  quite  certain,  that  there  was  some  John 
in  Asia  Minor  who  was  highly  distinguished,  and  to  whom  Polycarp  was  in  the  habit 
of  appealing  as  an  authority  of  the  first  class,  one  who,  if  not  an  apostle,  was  to  be 
ranked  with  apostles"  (p.  209).  In  this  conclusion,  Principal  Drummond  has  failed 
to  do  justice  to  Irenaeus  by  failing  to  bring  out  the  worth  of  Irenaeus'  testimony  con- 
cerning the  Asian  John.  The  conclusion  leaves  us  in  uncertainty  as  to  what  Irenaeus 
meant  and  admits  that  the  Asian  John  may  have  been  some  other  than  the  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  when  a  more  searching  examination  of  the  testimony  gives  us  the  son  of  Zebedee 
alone. 

492 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  43 

pivotal  portions  of  the  testimony,  especially  those  portions  which  these 
scholars  seem  to  have  failed  to  do  justice  to. 

Lightfoot  did  not  discuss  all  the  twenty-three  references.  Among  those 
to  which  he  gave  attention  he  found  five  classes  as  follows:  (i)  A  written 
source,  represented  by  the  references  of  i.p.2a;  1.13. 3*;;  3.17.4^;  and 
1.15.6;  (2)  a  probably  unwritten  source,  represented  by  4.27.105.; 
(3)  an  apparently  written  source,  represented  by  3.23.30;  (4)  a  probably 
written  source,  represented  by  4.41.20;  (5)  a  written  source,  represented 
by  5. 5. ic,  and  5.36.1^;  and  26.  Of  these  the  second,  fourth,  and  fifth 
"present  more  or  less  distinct  coincidences  with  St.  John's  Gospel"  (p.  61). 
The  fifth  class  he  regarded  as  a  written  source  because  "Irenaeus  uses  the 
present  tense  'the  elders  say,'  and  yet  the  persons  referred  to  belonged 
to  a  past  generation  and  were  no  longer  living  when  he  wrote"  (p.  62). 
Lightfoot  thought  it  probable  that  the  fourth  and  the  fifth  classes  might 
be  united  into  one,  both  being  thus  found  to  be  references  to  the  work  of 
Papias.  His  conclusion  is  significant  for  the  following  discussion  in  three 
ways: 

1.  It  recognizes  that  some  of  these  references  which  Irenaeus  made  to 
his  unnamed  authorities  have  no  bearing  on  the  fourth  gospel. 

2.  It  finds  that  some  of  the  references  which  have  a  bearing  on  the  fourth 
gospel  are  to  oral  sources. 

3.  It  accepts  the  remainder  of  the  references  as  made  to  a  written  source. 
The  conclusion  of  Lightfoot  is  shared  by  Harnack  to  the  extent  that  he 

recognizes  the  three  points  just  made.  He  disagrees  with  Lightfoot  in 
that  he  divides  the  references  as  a  whole  into  three  classes  only  and  reaches 
a  different  conclusion  as  to  those  which  have  a  bearing  on  the  fourth  gospel. 

Zahn  differs  from  both  Lightfoot  and  Harnack  by  finding  only  two 
classes  among  the  references  as  a  whole — those  which  have  no  bearing  on 
the  fourth  gospel,  and  those  which  do  have  a  bearing,  all  these  latter  being 
references  to  oral  tradition. 

Of  these  three  discussions  and  conclusions,  those  of  Harnack  and  Zahn 
are  certainly  the  more  important.  Lightfoot,  if  he  were  still  living  and 
studying  the  Irenaeus  testimony,  would  undoubtedly  revise  his  statements 
in  view  of  the  studies  which  have  appeared  since  his  time.  I  shall  assume, 
therefore,  that  his  discussion  is  superseded  and  shall  confine  myself  to  the 
points  in  which  Harnack  and  Zahn  agree,  and  those  in  which  they  differ, 
as  a  means  of  discovering  where  their  investigations  are  to  be  supplemented. 

Harnack  and  Zahn  agree  that  the  following  references  have  no  particular 
bearing  on  the  questions  raised  by  the  fourth  gospel:  i.p.20;  1.13.3^:; 
1.15.6;  3.17.4^,  3-23-3fl;  4-P-2&;  4-4- 2&;  4.41.20;  5.17.4^  These 

493 


44  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

references  are  so  uncertain  that  we  cannot  be  sure  to  what  sources  Irenaeus 
here  referred.  Perhaps  he  referred  to  several  different  persons.  At  any 
rate,  none  of  the  material  which  he  attributed  to  the  persons  he  so  obscurely 
referred  to  appears  to  throw  light  on  the  fourth  gospel. 

Having  thus  eliminated  nine  of  the  twenty-three  references  first  enumer- 
ated, the  chief  question  in  the  study  of  the  remaining  fourteen  is:  Did 
Irenaeus  here  make  use  of  oral  sources,  or  of  written  ones?  On  this 
question  Harnack  and  Zahn  again  agree  in  making  the  seven  citations  of 
4.27.10;  4.27.1*;;  4.27.2*;;  4.28.16;  4.30.10;  4.31.10;  and  4. 32. 10 
refer  to  an  oral  source.  Their  agreement  gives  strong  probability  that  the 
conclusion  is  correct.  My  own  study  of  the  passages  leads  to  the  same 
result. 

The  great  gulf  between  the  conclusion  of  Harnack  and  that  of  Zahn  is 
the  result  of  the  different  interpretations  which  they  make  of  six  out  of  the 
seven  remaining  passages,  namely,  2.22.5*;;  5.5.1*;;  5.30.10;  5.33.36; 
5 . 36 .  ic,  and  5.36. 26.  Zahn  concludes  that  the  reference  in  each  of  these 
six  instances  is  to  an  oral  source,  and  that  all  of  them  belong  to  the  same 
class  as  the  seven  which  have  just  been  considered.  Harnack  concludes 
that  these  six  references  are  to  a  written  source,  which  he  takes  to  be  the 
work  of  Papias.  These  six  references  must  be  thoroughly  examined, 
therefore,  in  order  to  discover,  if  possible,  whether  Harnack  or  Zahn  is 
correct  as  to  the  form  of  the  source  which  Irenaeus  here  used. 

Before  proceeding  to  that  examination,  however,  it  is  desirable  to  notice 
that  the  remaining  one  of  the  twenty-three  references  (Eus.  H.E.s.20; 
the  letter  to  Florinus)  also  properly  belongs  to  the  material  to  be  examined, 
though  both  Harnack  and  Zahn  have  practically  left  it  out  of  account  in 
evaluating  the  presbyter  testimony.1  It  must  be  considered  in  the  evalua- 
tion because  it  not  only  contains  a  reference  to  the  presbyters  but  also, 
at  the  same  time,  gives  us  testimony  concerning  Polycarp,  thus  furnish- 
ing a  point  of  contact  between  the  Irenaeus  testimony  which  has  already 
been  examined  and  that  which  is  now  before  us.  Accordingly,  we  have 

1  Harnack  considered  the  letter  to  some  extent  in  his  discussion  of  Polycarp,  but 
only  incidentally  and  meagerly  in  his  discussion  of  the  presbyters,  not  as  having  any 
important  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  significance  of  the  presbyter  testimony. 

Zahn  enumerates  (p.  60)  "die  wirklich  hieher  gehorigen  Stellen,  an  welchen  die 
citirten  Gewahrsmanner  entweder  geradezu  oder  vermoge  des  Zusammenhangs  mit 
anderen  Anfiihrungen  als  Apostelschiiler  charakterisirt  sind,"  but  no  part  of  the  letter 
to  Florinus  appears  in  the  list.  He,  like  Harnack,  appears  to  have  regarded  the  letter 
as  of  prime  significance  only  for  the  discussion  of  Polycarp. 

My  evaluation  of  the  presbyter  testimony,  on  the  contrary,  will  be  found  to  hinge 
largely  on  the  element  of  it  which  is  found  in  the  letter  to  Florinus. 

494 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO   THE    FOUKTH   GOSPEL  45 

seven  passages  (2.22. 5^;  5.5.1*;;  5.30.1(1;  5.33.36;  5-36.icV  5-36-2&» 
and  Eus.  JY.  £.  5 . 20)  as  those  which  are  pivotal  for  the  study  to  discover 
whether  Irenaeus,  in  them,  referred  to  a  written  source  or  to  an  oral  one. 

In  2.22.5  Irenaeus  was  discussing  Jesus'  age.  With  his  method,  the 
validity  of  his  argument,  or  the  results  at  which  he  arrived,  we  are  not 
concerned.  We  desire  merely  to  discover  what  there  is  in  his  reference  to 
indicate  the  kind  of  source  which  he  was  employing.  He  wrote  that  "a 
quadragesimo  et  quinquagesimo  anno  declinat  [a  man]  iam  in  aetatem  seni- 
orem,  quam  habens  Dominus  noster  docebat,  sicut  evangelium  KOL 
(TLV^  ot  Kara  rr]v  *A(7iav  'I(oavi/>7  T<?  TO^ 

,   TrapaSeSw/cei/at    Tavra    TOV  'laxxw^v Quidam 

autem  eorum  non  solum  loannem,  sed  et  alios  apostolos  viderunt,  et  haec 
eadem  ab  ipsis  audierunt  et  testantur  de  huiusmodi  relatione"  The  question 
is:  Did  Irenaeus  here  make  the  presbyters  a  written  source,  or  an  oral 
one  ?  The  question  must  be  answered  from  the  material  offered  by  the 
quotation,  for  there  is  nothing  more  in  the  context  which  gives  evidence  of 
coming  from  the  source  quoted. 

In  favor  of  the  source  being  written,  it  will  be  noticed  that  Irenaeus 
appealed  to  the  gospel  in  the  same  way  in  which  he  appealed  to  the  presby- 
ters. The  gospel  is  the  written  gospel,  for,  in  the  context,  quotation  is 
made  from  both  Luke  and  John.  Beside  the  written  gospel  are  juxtaposed 
the  words,  "the  presbyters."  At  first  thought  such  a  juxtaposition  appears 
to  make  the  form  of  the  source  in  the  case  of  the  presbyters  the  same  as 
in  the  case  of  the  gospel;  as  the  gospel  source  was  written,  so  also  the 
presbyter  source  was  written.  Further  consideration  of  the  statement, 
however,  shows  that  this  conclusion  does  not  take  all  the  data  into  account 
and  is  not  inevitable.  A  loose  writer  like  Irenaeus  might  make  such  a 
juxtaposition  incidentally  rather  than  significantly.  That  the  two  substan- 
tives are  thus  united  into  a  single  general  predicate — /xa/orvpotW  can 
hardly  be  called  more  precise  than  that — indicates  such  looseness  of  expres- 
sion as  to  weaken  the  argument  from  juxtaposition,  unless  juxtaposition  is 
regarded  in  itself  as  decisive. 

In  favor  of  the  source  being  oral  is  the  fact  that  it  is  plural,  "the  pres- 
byters." To  be  sure,  even  two  or  more  presbyters  might  have  united  in 
the  composition  of  a  work  in  which  they  discussed  Jesus'  age  as  a  teacher. 
But  such  a  thing  is  not  at  all  probable.  If  it  had  been  done,  some  better 
indication  of  the  fact  than  anything  we  have  here  would  be  likely  to  have 
shown  itself.  Harnack  thinks  their  discussion  had  been  embodied  in 
written  form  by  Papias  but  continued  to  be  referred  to  as  the  work  of  the 
presbyters.  This,  too,  is  possible,  but  his  conclusion  is  not  convincing 

495 


46  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

on  the  basis  of  this  passage  alone.  The  verb  used — fiaprvpoixnv  was 
evidently  the  verb  in  both  sentences  of  the  Greek  which  Irenaeus  wrote — 
perhaps  points  toward  the  conclusion  that  the  source  was  oral,  but,  in 
the  usage  of  Irenaeus,  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  decisive. 

Altogether,  though  the  passage  is  an  important  one,  it  does  not  furnish 
sufficient  evidence  to  determine  whether  its  source  was  written  or  oral. 
Whether  the  source  was  written  or  oral  must  be  left  an  open  question  until 
the  evidence  of  the  other  similar  passages  is  taken  into  account. 

When  we  pass  to  5.5.  ic,  we  do  not  find  anything  more  definite.  The 
language  is  not  sufficiently  different  to  warrant  the  space  of  quotation. 
Still  more  unfortunately,  neither  one  of  the  closely  associated  references 
of  5.30.10;  5.33.3^;  5. 36. ic,  or  5. 36.26  adds  anything  of  significance  to 
that  which  is  given  in  2.22.5^.  Some  of  them  give  more  of  the  contents 
of  the  source  from  which  Irenaeus  drew,  but  these  contents  are  not  material 
which  can  determine  the  form  of  the  source  which  he  used.  The  separate 
discussion  of  each  reference  would  be  largely  repetition.  There  is  the  less 
occasion  for  such  discussion  because  both  Harnack  and  Zahn  regard  all 
of  these  five  references  as  belonging  to  the  same  class  as  2 . 22 .  5^,  Harnack 
putting  them  all  together  as  written,  Zahn  making  them  all  oral.  Undoubt- 
edly they  will  continue  to  be  classed  together,  but  whether  the  class  will 
be  made  written  or  oral  will  depend,  I  believe,  on  evidence  yet  to  be 
considered. 

The  letter  to  Florinus  offers  that  more  significant  language.  It  has 
already  been  quoted  (p.  26),  but  the  portions  bearing  especially  on  the 
source  of  the  presbyter  testimony  may  appropriately  be  repeated.  They 
are  as  follows:  Tavra  TO,  Soy/xara  ot  TT/OO  iJ/Awi/  Trpta-fivrcpOL,  ot  KCLI  rot?  a-rro- 
OToAots  (rv/A(£(HT>ycrai/T€S,  ov  TTapfSwKOiv  (rot.  EtoW  yap  <re  .  .  .  .  ev  rfj  Kara) 
'Acria  Tra/oa  ra>  IIoXv/capTra)  ....  Sia/xv^/zoveva)  ....  TVJV  /ACT  a  'Icoavvov 
avvavacrT po<f>r]v  a>s  [IIoXv/caTrpos]  (ZTr^yyeAAe 

A  comparison  of  this  language  with  that  of  2.22.5^  (see  p.  45)  will 
show  at  once  the  similarities  between  the  two  narratives.  Attention  may 
be  called  to  some  of  the  more  important  of  these  similarities:  The  presby- 
ters are  mentioned  in  the  letter  just  as  they  were  in  the  other  passage;  here, 
as  there,  they  are  men  who  had  seen  the  apostles  and  associated  with  them;1 
the  teaching  which  these  presbyters  handed  down  was,  in  both  cases,  that 
which  they  had  received  from  John;  the  common  place  of  activity  was  Asia. 

The  obvious  conclusion  from  the  discovery  of  such  close  similarities 

1  For  determining  who  the  apostles  here  referred  to  were,  the  reader  should  recall 
here,  as  elsewhere,  the  discussion  of  Irenaeus'  use  of  the  word  "apostle"  early  in  this 
essay  (pp.  20-23). 

496 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  47 

between  the  two  passages  is,  that  the  presbyters  in  the  one  case  are  of  the 
same  class  as  the  presbyters  in  the  other,  and  that  the  teaching  on  the  basis 
of  which  Irenaeus  made  his  appeal  to  Florinus  is  out  of  the  same  treasury 
as  that  on  the  basis  of  which  he  made  appeal  to  those  who  should  read  the 
Heresies.  If  in  the  Heresies  narrative  Irenaeus  employed  a  written  source, 
then  quite  certainly  the  source  which  he  used  in  the  letter  to  Florinus  was 
written.  But  if  the  former  was  oral,  the  latter  likewise  was  doubtless  oral.1 
The  similarities  between  the  two  passages  appear  all  the  more  striking  when 
it  is  noted  that  the  letter  to  Florinus  was  probably  written  some  years  after 
the  passage  in  the  Heresies  and,  naturally,  without  any  thought  that  the 
two  would  ever  be  compared. 

The  conclusion  thus  reached  involves  a  similar  conclusion  for  the  refer- 
ences of  5 . 5 . ic;  5.30.10;  5.33.36;  5. 36. ic,  and  5.36.26,  since  these 
references  have  already  (p.  46)  been  assigned  to  the  same  class  as  2 .22 .5^:. 
The  seven  references  together  will  be  found  to  be  alike,  either  written  or 
oral,  as  far  as  the  evidence  already  considered  can  indicate. 

But  there  is  an  interesting  difference  between  the  language  of  the  letter 
to  Florinus  and  the  language  of  2 . 22  .  56-.  In  2 . 22 . 56-  the  verb  which  Ire- 
naeus used  to  describe  the  presbyter  source  is  in  the  present  tense 
povo-tv),  while  in  the  letter  to  Florinus  the  verb  is  in  the  past  tense 
*av).  This  difference  appears  the  more  significant  when  one  observes 
that  the  verbs  of  5.5. ic;  5.30.10;  5.33.36;  5.36.1*;,  and  5.36.26,  are 
all  presents.  The  difference  is  made  more  suggestive  when  we  recognize 
that  the  verbs  of  4.27.10;  4.27.1(7;  4.27.2*:;  4.28.16;  4.30.10;  4.31.10, 
and  4.32 . 10  are  all  in  the  past  tense.  The  past  tense  appears  natural  for 
a  reference  to  oral  testimony  of  men  who  were  no  longer  living,  apparently, 
at  the  time  when  Irenaeus  wrote,  but  to  use  the  present  tense  for  such  a 
reference  seems  to  require  explanation.  The  need  of  explanation  appears 
to  be  increased  when  we  take  into  account  that  the  presbyter  of  4.27.10; 
4.27.167  4.27.26-,  and  perhaps  the  presbyters  of  4.28.16  to  4.32.10, 
were  one  generation  farther  from  the  apostles  than  Polycarp;2  for,  though 

1  Harnack  has  led  astray  the  readers  of  his  interpretation  of  the  letter  to  Florinus 
by  making  significant  Irenaeus'  choice  of  trot  at  the  close  of  the  first  sentence  quoted 
above.     He  thinks  that  the  choice  of  trot  instead  of  TJ/JUV  indicates  that  Irenaeus  himself 
could  not  look  back  to  such  a  relationship  with  the  presbyters  as  Florinus  could.     His 
inference  certainly  appears  forced,  for  it  is  a  strange  conception  of  a  letter  according 
to  which  <rot,  chosen  evidently  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  recipient  of  the  letter 
knew  certain  things,  excluded  /xot  on  the  part  of  the  writer,  especially  when  the  writer 
proceeds  directly  to  speak  of  these  same  things  as  those  which  he  himself  recalled. 

2  Irenaeus'  descriptive  phrase  in  4.27.10  is:    "Audivi  a  quodam  presbytero,  qui 
audierat  ab  his  qui  apostolos  viderant." 

497 


48  HISTOKICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

these  men  seem  to  have  been  farther  from  the  apostles,  and  therefore  nearer 
to  Irenaeus,  the  verbs  which  refer  to  their  testimony  are  put  in  the  past 
tense,  while  the  verbs  referring  to  the  testimony  of  those  who  were  nearer 
the  apostles  are  put  in  the  present  tense.  Is  this  an  indication  that  Harnack 
— though  he  did  not  discuss  this  element  of  the  testimony — was  correct  in 
concluding  that  2 . 22 .  5^,  etc.,  imply  a  written  source  ? 

Before  an  answer  is  given,  two  other  data  offered  by  the  letter  to  Florinus 
must  be  considered.  First,  in  this  letter  Polycarp  is  one  of  the  presbyters, 
for  the  teachings  to  which  Irenaeus  was  exhorting  Florinus  to  return  were 
teachings  which  Florinus  had  received  from  Polycarp  as  one  of  the  presby- 
ters. This  is  certainly  the  meaning  of  the  later  portion  of  the  letter  (see 
p.  26),  where  Irenaeus  reminded  Florinus  specifically  of  the  teaching  of 
Polycarp  and  of  the  fact  that  this  teaching  had  come  from  John  and  others 
who  had  seen  the  Lord.  The  connective  yap  after  ci8ov  also  shov/s  that 
the  statement  which  it  introduces  relating  to  Polycarp  is  explanatory  of 
the  preceding  statement  concerning  the  presbyters,  one  of  whom,  therefore, 
Polycarp  must  have  been  considered.  This  conclusion  is  made  certain  a 
little  later  when  Polycarp  is  expressly  called  a  presbyter. 

The  second  datum  to  be  taken  into  account  is,  that  the  testimony  from 
Polycarp  in  this  letter  to  Florinus — and  so  the  testimony  of  all  of  these 
presbyters,  in  view  of  the  conclusion  of  the  above  paragraph — is  plainly 
oral.  We  are  sure  of  this  because  Irenaeus  insisted  that  he  was  recalling 
from  memory  the  teachings  to  which  he  urged  Florinus'  attention.  His 
language  implies  clearly  that  Florinus,  likewise,  had  received  the  instruction 
in  question  orally.  The  oral  nature  of  this  testimony  from  Polycarp 
and  the  other  presbyters  is  further  brought  out  by  Irenaeus'  language  at 
the  close  of  the  letter.  After  he  had  spoken  of  Polycarp  and  his  teaching 
as  Florinus  and  himself  had  received  information  orally,  he  continued: 
Keu  €K  TWV  €7r«TToXo)v  Se  avrov  ....  Swarcu  <j>avep<aOfjvaL.  The  oral 
testimony  which  Florinus  had  received  might  be  corroborated  by  written 
statements  to  the  same  effect  in  the  letters  of  Polycarp  still  current  at  the 
time  when  Irenaeus  wrote. 

The  evidence  seems,  therefore,  to  point  in  two  directions.  The  verbs 
in  the  present  tense  in  the  references  to  the  presbyter  testimony  of  2 . 22 .5, 
etc.,  favor  the  conclusion  that  this  testimony  was  from  a  written  source. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  striking  similarities  between  the  contents  of  the 
testimony  of  the  letter — which  has  been  found  to  be  certainly  oral — and 
the  contents  of  the  other  testimony  favor  the  conclusion  that  all  of  the 
presbyter  testimony  was  oral.  Can  this  apparent  discrepancy  be  explained  ? 

There  seems  to  be  no  way  of  minimizing  the  significance  of  the  common 

498 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE   FOUBTH    GOSPEL  49 

contents  of  the  two  statements  of  Irenaeus  except  to  say  that  the  similarities 
are  mere  chance  and  to  deny  them  any  determining  weight.  This  would 
not  be  an  explanation  and  would  still  leave  unaccounted  for  the  fact  that 
the  letter  to  Florinus  contains  presbyter  testimony  which  is  certainly  oral, 
while  the  same  kind  of  testimony  in  the  Heresies  is  regarded  as  written. 
It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  to  inquire  whether  Irenaeus  may  have  employed 
the  verbs  in  the  present  tense  to  refer  to  an  oral  tradition  handed  down  from 
an  earlier  time.  Grammatical  usage  appears  to  warrant  such  an  explana- 
tion in  either  of  two  ways.  The  verbs  may  be  regarded  as  historical 
presents,  in  which  case  they  are  a  vivid  means  of  calling  attention  to  the 
impressiveness  of  the  testimony  which  the  presbyters  gave;  or  they  may 
be  regarded  as  progressive  presents,  in  which  case  Irenaeus  conceived  of 
the  testimony  from  the  presbyters  as  so  vital  and  permanent,  through  its 
repetition  by  men  of  his  own  time,  that  the  presbyters  were  still  speaking. 
The  thought  of  Irenaeus  is  not  essentially  different  by  the  adoption  of  one 
of  these  explanations  from  what  it  is  by  the  adoption  of  the  other.  From 
which  point  of  view  he  conceived  them  as  he  wrote,  we  can  hardly  conclude 
with  certainty.  I  think  it  probable,  however,  that  he  regarded  the  presby- 
ters as  still  speaking  through  the  men  of  his  own  time,  and  that  we  should 
therefore  describe  the  verbs  as  progressive  presents.1 

The  argument  thus  presented  for  the  oral  form  of  the  presbyter  testimony 
which  Irenaeus  used  is  supplemented  by  a  statement  in  the  midst  of  the 
testimony  which  appears  to  exclude  the  conclusion  that  the  testimony  was 
written.  This  statement  is  a  reference  to  the  work  of  Papias  at  the  begin- 
ning of  5 . 33 . 4,  in  which  we  read:  Tavra  [referring  back  to  testimony  which 
had  just  been  attributed  to  the  presbyters]  8e  /cat  llamas  'IwdVvov  /xei/ 
d/covaT^s,  IIoAvKapTrov  Se  ercupos  yeyovws,  ap\alo<s  avrjp,  eyypa<£<os  CTrt/xap- 
rvpet  iv  rrj  Terdrr}  T&V  avrov  fiipXwv.  The  KCU,  which  is  strengthened  by 

1  It  may  still  be  asked  why  Irenaeus  used  the  past  tense  so  regularly  in  some 
instances  (4 . 27  .  ia,  etc.)  and  the  present  with  equal  regularity  in  other  cases  (2 . 22  .$c, 
etc.).  I  offer  the  following  explanation:  If  these  citations  are  considered  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  composition  of  his  work,  they  occur  at  four  points.  The  passage  in 
2. 22 . 5c  stands  by  itself,  the  only  one  of  the  references  which  occurs  in  the  second  book. 
The  seven  references  of  4 . 27 .  ia,  etc.,  are  evidently  from  one,  or  practically  one,  sitting 
of  the  writer.  That  of  5.5.1^  like  2.22.5C,  occurs  apart  by  itself .  The  last  four 
references  of  the  fifth  book  have  a  contiguity  similar  to  the  contiguity  of  the  seven  in 
the  fourth  book.  At  the  first,  third,  and  fourth  of  these  points  Irenaeus  thought,  and 
expressed  himself,  through  historical,  or  progressive,  presents.  In  the  second,  he 
thought,  and  expressed  himself,  through  a  past  tense.  Probably  everyone  who  has 
observed  himself  or  other  writers  has  recognized  these  tense  "moods."  The  phenom- 
enon may  be  observed  in  printed  books.  It  will  doubtless  be  found  in  this  essay,  though 
I  have  consciously  sought  to  avoid  it. 

499 


50  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

the  cm  in  composition,  shows  that  Irenaeus  had  material  from  Papias 
in  addition  to  that  which  he  derived  from  the  presbyters.  The  eyypa^ws 
shows  that  the  material  from  Papias  was  written  and  implies  that  the  mate- 
rial from  the  presbyters  was  oral.  If  Irenaeus  had  not  desired  to  emphasize 
the  written  form  of  the  material  from  Papias  as  over  against  the  oral  from 
the  presbyters,  his  meaning  was  complete  without  the  eyy/oa(£cos.  The 
distance  of  eyyp<£<£cos  from  the  Kat  likewise  indicates  that  he  was  keeping 
such  a  distinction  in  mind.1 

I  conclude  with  Zahn,  therefore,  that  Irenaeus,  when  he  referred  to  the 
presbyters,  was  employing  an  oral  tradition.  The  basis  of  my  conclusion, 
however,  is  markedly  different  from  Zahn's.  He  noted  that  the  citations 
of  5. 5. ic,  etc.,  were  referred  by  Irenaeus  to  "the  presbyters,"  or  to  "the 
presbyters,  disciples  of  the  apostles,"  and,  without  more  critical  evaluation 
of  the  reference,  concluded  (p.  71):  "Es  ist  also  ohne  Frage  derselbe  Kreis 
von  Mannern  gemeint  wie  in  den  Citaten  Nr.  i  und  2-8"  (i.e.,  2.22.5 
and  the  seven  in  4.27.1-4.32.1;  for  he  had  already  concluded,  p.  62,  on 
the  basis  of  a  more  extended  discussion,  but  one  no  more  convincing 
because  largely  irrelevant,  that  2.22.5  belongs  to  the  same  class  as  the  cita- 
tions in  book  four).  It  is  not  surprising  that  Harnack  has  not  been  con- 
vinced by  such  treatment  of  important  material.  One  wonders  how  Zahn 

1  The  distinction  between  his  sources  which  Irenaeus  thus  made  is  similar  to 
the  distinction  which  he  made  in  the  letter  to  Florinus  (p.  48).  In  each  case,  the  oral 
source  was  used  first  and  then  confirmed  by  a  reference  to  a  written  source. 

Harnack  has  strangely  disregarded  the  eyypd^ws  in  his  discussion  (p.  336),  not 
even  mentioning  it;  and  this  enabled  him  to  use  the  5£  nal  not  only  to  show  that  the 
Papias  testimony  was  confirmatory,  but  also  that  it  was  of  the  same  form  as  that  of 
the  presbyters.  Harnack  thinks  it  would  be  strange,  if  the  testimony  from  the  presby- 
ters was  oral,  that  Irenaeus  should  have  found  the  same  testimony  in  the  written  work 
of  Papias.  The  objection  appears  convincing  only  if  we  assume  a  verbatim  similarity 
between  the  two  sources.  But  such  an  assumption  is  surely  not  necessary.  If  Irenaeus 
found  in  Papias'  work  a  statement  of  substantially  the  same  things  as  those  which 
had  come  to  him  through  the  oral  tradition  of  the  presbyters,  the  requirements  of  his 
language  are  sufficiently  met.  ir-  ? ;  ?*« 

Bacon  has  obscured  Irenaeus'  distinction  in  a  different  way  when  he  translates 
the  phrase  in  question  as  follows  (The  Hibbert  Journal,  II,  p.  330):  "These  things 
Papias,  who  was  a  hearer  of  John  ....  witnesses  in  writing  in  the  fourth  of  his  books." 
This  translation  is  clearly  a  disregard  of  the  significant  connectives  which  Irenaeus 
used. 

In  4.41.20  Irenaeus  made  a  distinction  between  authorities  which  further  illus- 
trates his  usage  in  such  matters.  In  this  passage,  for  the  support  of  his  interpretation 
of  the  word  "filius,"  he  added:  "Quemadmodum  et  quidam  ante  nos  dixit."  The  "et" 
shows  the  additional  source,  but  no  further  words  were  used  to  indicate  that  the 
second  source  was  of  a  different  kind. 

500 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  51 

himself,  especially  after  the  appearance  of  Harnack's  Chronologic,  could 
expect  that  such  treatment  would  suffice. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  rejected  the  conclusion  of  Harnack  that  the 
presbyter  testimony  of  2.22.5*;,  e^c*>  was  written  only  after  taking  into 
account  important  data  which  he  did  not  use  and  after  subjecting  all  the 
data  involved  to  a  more  searching  and  exhaustive  examination  than  he  has 
offered. 

In  some  ways,  at  least,  as  already  mentioned  (p.  42),  this  extended  exam- 
ination of  the  testimony  which  Irenaeus  attributed  to  the  presbyters  appears 
to  be  remote  from  the  fourth  gospel,  perhaps  even  remote  from  the  question 
of  the  significance  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony  to  the  fourth  gospel.  It  is, 
however,  of  very  great  importance,  next  hi  importance,  in  fact,  to  the  testi- 
mony from  Polycarp.  Indeed,  in  the  letter  to  Florinus,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  is  the  testimony  of  Polycarp  and,  by  virtue  of  this,  connects  the  two  classes 
of  testimony  closely  together. 

But  it  has  a  further  value,  also,  in  view  of  which  its  examination  is  par- 
ticularly in  place  in  this  essay.  By  means  of  it  we  are  able  to  discover,  as 
we  otherwise  should  hardly  be  able  to  do,  the  general  situation  in  which 
Irenaeus  lived,  and  the  historical  and  intellectual  atmosphere  about  him. 
We  see  from  it  how  close  Irenaeus  felt  himself  to  be  to  the  days  of  the 
apostles,  and,  as  we  do  this,  we  are  in  a  position  to  understand  his  language, 
which,  for  those  who  demand  specific  statements  from  him  as  to  the  source 
of  his  information,  is  by  no  means  as  convincing  as  it  might  be,  but,  when  his 
position  is  taken  into  account,  is  such  language  as  might  be  expected.  He 
wrote  for  the  people  of  his  own  time.  Even  the  Heresies  was  only  a  tract 
for  the  times,  extended  and  verbose,  to  be  sure,  but  written  to  meet  existing 
need.  In  a  work  thus  produced,  explanations  about  his  authorities  and 
his  relation  to  Asia,  the  means  of  communication  which  were  employed, 
and  the  transmission  of  news  would  have  been  highly  gratuitous.  He  and 
all  his  readers  knew  who  the  presbyters  were,  and  he  took  their  knowledge 
for  granted. 

It  is  a  serious  mistake,  therefore,  to  think  that  Irenaeus,  born  in  Asia 
and  living  there  till  he  was  at  least  a  youth,  should  have  maintained  the 
interest  in  Asia  and  Asian  affairs  so  manifest  in  his  writings,  and  yet  have 
been  practically  cut  off  from  his  native  land.  Some  writers  proceed  as 
though  Polycarp  and  Irenaeus  were  the  only  men  of  the  second  century  and 
Irenaeus  could  not  have  known  anything  of  Asia  except  what  he  received 
directly  from  Polycarp.  It  is  forgotten  that  the  removal  of  Irenaeus  from 
Asia  to  Gaul,  the  removal  of  Florinus  from  Asia  to  Rome  (cf .  Eus.  H.  E. 
5 . 20  with  5.15),  and  the  visit  of  Polycarp  to  Rome  are  evidently  only  inci- 

501 


52  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

dental  examples  of  visits  and  changes  which  were  occurring  frequently, 
by  means  of  which  important  information  was  the  common  property  of 
Christians  throughout  the  empire. 

Indeed,  for  those  who  are  ready  to  transport  themselves  back  in  thought 
into  Irenaeus'  time,  to  reconstruct  the  activities  which  were  occurring  about 
him,  to  think  of  his  relation  to  Asia  and  of  his  natural  communication  with 
Asian  friends,  to  recognize  that  there  were  men  only  a  little  younger  than 
Polycarp  who  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  be  leavened  with  his  thought  or 
to  transmit  it  to  their  younger  companions,  to  think  of  how  such  men  readily 
became  the  means  for  the  distribution  of  the  treasured  apostolic  information, 
to  realize  that  the  several  letters  of  Polycarp  still  extant  in  Irenaeus'  day 
(see  p.  27)  were  only  representative  of  the  correspondence  which  carried 
information  over  the  em  pure  but  retained  it  in  the  personal  form  rather 
than  in  one  which  would  be  called  history,  or  narratives — for  those  who 
are  willing  to  restore  the  life  of  the  second  century  in  such  ways  as  these, 
only  much  more  fully  than  this  outline  indicates,  the  testimony  of  the  pres- 
byters and  its  introduction  without  any  explanation  or  naming  of  the  indi- 
viduals other  than  Polycarp,  as  well  as  the  importance  which  it  had  for 
Irenaeus,  are  only  the  most  natural  phenomena.  He  who  thus  relives  the 
times,  who  is  not  content  simply  to  scrutinize  the  documents  grudingly  and 
accept  only  what  they  rigidly  require,  is  merely  an  instance  of  the  historian 
who  not  only  goes  back  to  the  documents  but  back  oj  the  documents,  a 
process  without  which  no  history  is  ever  truly  written.1 

What  has  just  been  said  should  not  be  interpreted  as  a  minimizing  of 
documents.  Too  much  has  been  made  of  them  in  this  essay  to  warrant 
such  an  inference  as  that.  It  is  intended  only  to  insist  that  documents 
alone  may  be  merely  what  the  skeleton  is  to  the  body;  we  could  not  get 
along  without  the  skel  eton,  but,  if  wre  decline  to  accept  anything  more  than 
its  various  bones,  we  shall  never  know  the  body  from  which  it  came.  Ire- 
naeus' testimony  is  only  a  skeleton  on  which  to  restore  a  body.  The  presby- 
ter portion  shows  where  some  of  the  outlines  are  to  be  filled  in  and  indicates 
the  form  which  the  body  will  take  when  it  is  complete.  We  are  poor  his- 
torians if  we  cling  to  the  bones  only  and  refuse  to  make  the  restoration  as 
the  outlines  are  given  to  us. 

1  A  modern  instance  of  similar  import  is  in  point.  Shall  it  be  said  that  I  do  not 
know  the  substantial  facts  concerning  Johann  Oncken's  baptism  in  the  River  Elbe 
in  1834,  because  I  never  knew  him,  nor  Barnas  Sears,  nor  heard  the  story  of  the  baptism 
from  anyone  who  heard  it  from  either  of  them,  nor,  as  far  as  I  know,  read  of  the  bap- 
tism from  the  writings  of  anyone  who  knew  Oncken  or  Sears,  personally  ?  Yet  I 
am  much  more  likely  to  be  in  error  concerning  that  incident  than  Irenaeus  was  to  be 
in  error  concerning  the  John  of  Asia. 

502 


IRENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL  53 

The  outcome  of  such  a  readiness  to  transfer  oneself  back  into  the  second 
century  and  relive  its  conditions  is  a  recognition  that  Irenaeus  was  in  a 
position  to  know  well  the  important  facts  of  the  situation  in  Asia  at  the  close 
of  the  first  century.  He  could  know,  as  thoroughly  as  current  and  wide- 
spread opinion  could  give  it  to  him,  the  Asian  thought  about  the  Asian  John 
and  any  writings  which  he  left.  Though  he  may  never  have  seen  Polycarp 
except  when  he  listened  to  him  in  his  youth — and  probably  he  did  not — he 
would  still  be  able  to  know  of  him  and  his  work  with  fulness  and  accuracy 
through  the  accounts  of  men  who  had  associated  with  Polycarp  in  his  later 
years  and  afterward  had  met  Irenaeus  or  had  otherwise  communicated 
with  him.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  Pothinus  had  occupied  such 
a  place.  If  he  did  not,  others  might  easily  and  naturally  have  done  so. 

The  failure  of  Irenaeus  to  mention  the  names  of  any  of  the  presbyters 
except  Polycarp  is  not  strange  when  Irenaeus'  custom  in  the  use  of  names 
is  taken  into  account.  It  seems  to  have  been  an  idiosyncrasy  of  his  not  to 
make  use  of  names.  Perhaps  few  students  have  paused  to  consider  that 
even  Polycarp  is  mentioned  in  only  one  passage  of  the  entire  Adversus 
Haereses  (3.3.4).  Papias  is  named  only  once  (5. 33.4(1).  Ignatius  is 
quoted  once  (5.28. 4^),  but  his  name  is  not  mentioned.  He  was  to  Irenaeus 
simply  "a  certain  man  of  ours."  Shall  we  say  in  view  of  this  that  Irenaeus 
did  not  know  his  name  ?  Probably  we  shall  not.  But,  if  he  knew  Ignatius 
and  yet  quoted  him  without  naming  him,  is  it  strange  that  he  did  not  name 
the  presbyters,  other  than  Polycarp,  to  whom  he  referred  ?  He  may  have 
known  the  names  of  several  of  them  and  yet  have  chosen  to  omit  their 
names,  since,  as  he  felt,  at  least,  the  addition  of  their  names  would  not 
enhance  the  value  of  his  work.  Harnack's  conclusion  (p.  334)  that  because 
Irenaeus  did  not  mention  any  more  of  the  names  of  the  presbyters  he  did 
not  know  any  more  must  regretfully  be  regarded  as  a  lack  of  appreciation 
of  Irenaeus'  personal  bearing  in  the  matter  of  names  and  of  the  usage  which 
resulted  from  it. 

The  recognition  that  these  presbyters  were  felt  by  Irenaeus  to  be  so 
near  to  him  and  that  the  testimony  which  he  had  from  them  was  oral 
explains  how  that  testimony  could  be  at  once  most  highly  regarded  and  least 
trustworthy.  It  was  most  highly  regarded  because  it  had  all  the  freshness 
of  apparent  personality.  It  was  least  trustworthy  because  it  had  suffered 
the  transformation  of  all  oral  tradition. 

The  story  of  Jesus'  age  (2.22.5)  ^s  an  interesting  example  of  this  com- 
bination of  high  regard  and  untrustworthiness.  If  Irenaeus  found  that 
story  in  a  written  source  which  dated  from  the  early  part  of  the  second 
century  and  had  its  origin  in  a  sub-apostolic  circle,  no  very  creditable 

503 


54  HISTOEICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

explanation  of  its  origin  is  available.  But,  if  he  got  the  idea  of  Jesus'  age 
from  oral  tradition,  it  is  a  comparatively  easy  matter  to  understand  how 
tradition,  in  the  course  of  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century,  should 
have  developed  into  the  story  which  Irenaeus  related.  Its  oral  trans- 
mission and  development  accounts  for  its  lack  of  harmony  with  the  early 
written  records,  but  the  personal  element  in  its  oral  form  made  it  appear 
more  important  to  Irenaeus  than  the  statements  of  the  gospels  themselves. 
Accordingly,  he  used  the  oral  tradition  first  to  prove  that  Jesus  lived  to  be 
forty  or  fifty  years  old,  and  then,  by  a  forced  interpretation  of  John  8 : 56,  57, 
he  attempted  to  bring  this,  his  secondary  authority,  into  harmony  with  the 
oral  testimony,  which  to  him  was  of  first  importance.1 

This  use  of  the  oral  tradition  side  by  side  with  the  written  gospels  by 
Irenaeus  presents  what  to  us  may  be  a  strange  fusion  of  authorities,  but  it 
was  not  such  to  him.  He  was  absolutely  sure  there  were  only  four  gospels 
which  were  to  be  recognized  (3.11.8),  of  which  the  gospel  according  to 
John  was  one;  yet,  by  the  side  of  this  and  of  superior  importance,  if  the 

1  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Irenaeus  did  regard  the  oral  authority  of  the  presbyters 
as  more  direct  and  more  important.  This  is  shown  by  the  form  in  which  he  introduced 
the  gospel  statement:  "Sed  et  ipsi  ....  ludaei  ....  significaverunt,"  in  which 
the  "et"  shows  that  this  statement  is  confirmatory  of  the  preceding  argument.  Of 
course  it  is  possible  for  a  confirmatory  statement  to  be  regarded  as  equal  in  importance 
with  the  one  which  it  confirms.  The  more  important  statement  may  even  be  reserved 
till  the  last  as  a  climax.  But  I  have  no  idea  that  anyone  who  reads  this  and  other 
passages  of  Irenaeus  will  attribute  such  logical  or  rhetorical  arrangement  to  him.  He 
placed  first  that  which  was  the  important  consideration.  Afterward  that  which  was 
less  important  was  introduced  to  corroborate.  The  case  here  of  the  age  of  Jesus  is 
similar  to  that  in  the  argument  to  Florinus,  where  the  oral  tradition  of  the  presbyters 
was  placed  first  and  then  a  reference  made  to  the  letters  of  Polycarp  (p.  27),  in  which 
the  same  material  could  be  found.  A  still  further  case  is  that  of  the  presbyters  and 
Papias  already  discussed  (p.  51),  where  again  the  oral  authority  of  the  presbyters 
received  the  place  of  importance. 

The  recognition  of  the  superiority  of  the  oral  presbyter  testimony  for  Irenaeus  is 
important  because  it  enforces  once  more  the  certainty  of  Irenaeus'  feeling  of  nearness 
to  the  apostles  and  their  teaching  and  indicates  again  the  way  in  which  we  are  to  under- 
stand Irenaeus  when  he  wrote  of  apostolic  tradition. 

Through  the  medium  of  the  presbyter  tradition,  we  readily  understand  why 
John  14:2  was  so  loosely  quoted  in  5.36.20.  Irenaeus'  own  direct  quotations  were 
loose  enough,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  12);  when  he  was  only  quoting  from  an  oral  trans- 
mission of  Jesus'  words,  the  freedom  here  is  what  we  might  expect.  Whether  the  pres- 
byters got  this  statement  entirely  from  oral  tradition  or  from  one  of  the  Johannine 
"booklets"  is  unimportant.  The  following  sentence,  "Quemadmodum  Verbum  eius 
[God]  ait:  'Omnibus  divisum  esse  a  Patre  secundum  quod  quis  est  dignus,  aut  erit, '  "  thus 
attributed  to  Jesus,  not,  however,  found  in  our  gospels,  but  doubtless,  as  Stieren  thought, 
belonging  "ad  dictum  Christi,  Irenaeo  traditum  a  presbyteris  veteribus,  quos  saepissime 

504 


IBENAEUS    TESTIMONY    TO   THE    FOUBTH    GOSPEL  55 

two  did  not  agree,  was  the  oral  tradition  from  the  presbyters,  which  came 
to  him  as  personal  testimony  still  fresh  with  its  personal  life  and  vividness. 
Such  an  insistence  on  four  gospels  as  the  only  ones,  at  the  same  time  that 
the  oral  tradition  was  valued  even  more  highly,  may  appear  to  us  to  be 
an  inconsistency,  but  it  was  not  that  to  him.  He  did  not  even  become 
aware  that  such  a  use  of  authorities  required  any  explanation,  and  this 
probably  means  that  such  a  view  of  gospel  material  was  the  common  one 
in  his  day,  at  least  one  the  appropriateness  of  which  was  not  disputed.  In 
fact,  others  were  more  liberal  than  he,  for  his  insistence  on  only  four 
gospels  indicates  that  others  would  have  accepted  more  than  four.  Gospel 
accounts,  both  written  and  oral,  were  evidently  common  possessions;  the 
apostolic  tradition,  especially  that  from  John  of  Asia,  was  familiar  and  fully 
recognized.  When  Irenaeus  spoke  of  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  as 
"the  disciple  of  the  Lord  who  also  leaned  upon  his  breast"  (3.1.1^),  he 
at  once  recalled  for  his  readers  the  rich  oral  tradition  which  was  current 
among  the  Christians  of  his  day,  and  they  filled  hi  the  outline.  For  this 

laudat"  may  indicate  that  the  presbyter  form  of  this  John  passage  was  entirely  oral. 
We  may  be  quite  certain,  at  any  rate,  that  Irenaeus  did  not  think  of  it,  on  the  occasion 
of  his  writing  this  passage,  as  being  a  quotation  from  his  Johannine  gospel.  Whether 
Irenaeus  was  thinking  directly  of  the  gospel  when  he  wrote  3 . 19 .  3C,  where  the  Latin 
has  the  same  words  as  in  5 . 36 .  2a,  it  is  impossible  to  determine,  for  there  is  no  reference 
given  to  any  authority.  In  the  tables  at  the  beginning  of  this  essay,  I  have  called 
3.IQ.3C  a  "reference"  to  the  gospel  but  have  made  5.36.20  a  "quotation,"  because 
of  the  different  ways  in  which  Irenaeus  introduced  the  two  allusions  to  the  gospel.  It 
is  one  of  Irenaeus'  uses  of  the  gospel  which  illustrate  the  difficulty  of  making  rules  to 
describe  the  different  kinds  of  reference  which  he  employed. 

The  recognition  of  the  superiority  of  the  oral  testimony  for  Irenaeus  is  highly 
important  for  the  understanding  of  his  statement  in  the  recently  discovered  Armenian 
MS,  according  to  which  Irenaeus  wrote  (translation  of  Fred  C.  Conybeare,  The  Exposi- 
tor, July,  1907,  p.  43):  "Now  faith  assigns  (or  guarantees)  us  this  [salvation]  just  as 
the  elders,  the  disciples  of  the  apostles,  handed  (it)  down.  In  the  first  place  it  pre- 
scribes remembrance  of  the  fact  that  we  have  received  baptism  for  the  remission  of 
sin  into  name  of  God  the  Father  and  into  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  made 
flesh  and  dead  and  risen,  and  into  Holy  Spirit  of  God."  As  soon  as  one  recognizes  that 
the  tradition  of  the  elders  was  primary  for  Irenaeus,  he  will  not  say,  with  Conybeare: 
"Why  should  Irenaeus,  if  he  had  before  him  the  direct  precept  of  the  Lord  to  baptize 
in  the  name  of  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit  (Matt.  28:19),  thus  invoke  the  tradition 
of  the  elders  ?  .  .  .  .  Moreover,  the  true  formula  as  here  given  is  quite  unlike  that  of 
Matt.  28:19."  He  becomes  aware  that  the  formula  which  Irenaeus  used  is  unlike 
that  of  Matthew  just  because  Irenaeus  was  following  the  tradition  of  the  presbyters, 
which,  though  degenerate,  was  the  authority  which  he  preferred.  He  had  such  a  for- 
mula from  tradition,  naturally,  because  a  formula  for  such  a  service  as  baptism  would 
be  one  of  those  most  likely  to  be  transmitted  orally,  and  to  have  developed  in  the  Asian 
circle  of  Christians  somewhat  differently  from  that  of  the  first  gospel. 

505 


56  HISTORICAL   AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

tradition  Irenaeus  himself  was  doubtless  largely  responsible,  since  he  must 
often  have  told  to  the  many  Christians  whom  he  had  met  in  his  varied 
ministries  such  details  as  those  which  are  merely  touched  upon  in  the 
letter  to  Florinus,  details  for  which  he  was  under  obligation  to  Polycarp 
and  those  who  had  associated  with  Polycarp,  older  than  himself  but  younger 
than  Polycarp.  No  doubt  he  had  received  much  of  this  material  from 
Florinus  himself,  who  had  been  more  closely  associated  with  Polycarp  and 
apparently  had  been  Irenaeus'  close  friend  for  many  years. 


506 


CONCLUSION 

i 

The  Irenaeus  testimony  which  has  been  examined  is  of  two  quite  differ- 
ent kinds,  but  the  examination  has  led  to  a  single  result.  In  the  case  of  the 
testimony  which  Irenaeus  derived  from  Polycarp,  the  study  has  been  chiefly 
a  critical  investigation  of  the  meaning  of  Irenaeus'  language  in  the  two 
important  letters  which  have  come  down  to  us.  That  study  has  seemed 
to  give  good  evidence  for  believing  that  the  celebrated  John  of  Asia  was  the 
son  of  Zebedee  and  that  he  was  responsible  for  Johannine  writings  which 
were  current  during  the  first  half  of  the  second  century.  The  study  of  the 
testimony  which  Irenaeus  attributed  to  the  presbyters  has  been  equally 
critical,  but  it  has  given  no  direct  information  concerning  John  or  the 
Johannine  writings.  It  has  shown,  however,  how  near  Irenaeus  felt  him- 
self to  be  to  the  apostles  of  the  first  century.  That  feeling  of  nearness  to 
the  apostles  was  recognized,  to  be  sure,  in  the  letters  to  Victor  and  Florinus, 
but  in  the  presbyter  testimony  it  becomes  much  more  prominent,  though 
this  greater  prominence  is  seen  not  so  much  in  express  statement  as  in  the 
unexpressed  but  conscious  assurance  of  that  nearness  which  his  language 
implies.  He  felt  himself  so  directly  in  contact  with  apostolic  teaching, 
and  so  fully  assumed  the  recognition  of  this  on  the  part  of  his  readers,  that 
he  did  not  think  of  explaining  why  he  had  this  assurance.  The  conditions 
which  justified  him  in  this  course  of  thought  and  method  of  writing  must 
not  be  overlooked,  if  we  are  at  all  correctly  to  understand  the  conditions 
under  which  he  wrote  and  the  meaning  of  what  he  said,  especially  his  meager 
statements  concerning  the  authorship  of  New  Testament  writings. 

If  we  thus  put  the  testimony  of  the  letters  and  the  testimony  from  the 
presbyters  together,  reading  both  in  view  of  the  apologetic  purpose  with 
which  Irenaeus  wrote,  recognizing  that  he  was  concerned  with  authorship 
only  in  a  most  incidental  way,  we  come  to  see  that  the  testimony  which 
Irenaeus  gives  us  is  all  the  more  important  because  it  is  incidental  and  that 
it  is  worth  much  more  than  its  meager  expression  appears  at  first  to  indicate. 
We  are  able,  in  fact,  partially  to  restore  the  conditions  of  Irenaeus'  time 
and  to  understand  why  his  language  is  what  we  find. 

At  the  same  time,  however,  although  this  partial  restoration  has  given 
us  the  son  of  Zebedee  as  the  John  of  Asia  together  with  actual  Johannine 
writings,  our  fourth  gospel  in  its  present  form  has  removed  from  the  close 
of  the  first  century  to  the  middle  of  the  second.  This  conclusion,  at  once 
extremely  conservative  and  highly  radical,  has  been  reached,  however, 
507]  57 


58  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

only  by  a  most  thorough  and  painstaking  investigation  of  the  data  bearing 
on  the  problem. 

As  compared  with  the  investigation  of  Lightfoot,  the  essay  has  frankly 
opened  the  question  of  the  "authenticity"  of  the  gospel  without  regard  to 
results,  and  the  outcome  has  been  a  truly  Johannine  foundation  for  the 
gospel  which  Lightfoot  did  not  reach.  In  fact,  he  was  hardly  aware,  per- 
haps, of  the  seriousness  of  the  task  of  showing  a  closeness  of  relationship 
between  the  gospel  and  the  son  of  Zebedee;  his  personal  religious  attitude 
and  his  ecclesiastical  position  made  indubitable  for  him  arguments  which, 
to  another  cast  of  mind,  possess  little  convincing  power.  The  discussion 
of  this  essay,  without  religious  or  ecclesiastical  concern  as  to  who  wrote  the 
gospel,  has  made  it  easier  to  estimate  both  Lightfoot's  discussion  and  the 
cogency  of  such  replies  as  that  of  Harnack  and,  with  the  aid  of  both,  to  go 
deeper  into  the  problem  than  either. 

As  over  against  Harnack's  study  and  conclusion  specifically,  I  have 
shown;  (i)  that  Irenaeus  was  in  a  position  to  know  the  facts,  substantially 
at  least,  concerning  the  Asian  John;  (2)  that,  therefore,  Irenaeus'  testi- 
mony concerning  John  and  the  Johannine  writings  cannot  be  lightly  set 
aside,  and  (3)  that,  when  all  the  testimony  bearing  on  the  form  of  the 
presbyter  material  is  taken  into  account,  Irenaeus'  source  for  this  testimony 
is  all  seen  to  be  oral  tradition,  rather  than  partially  the  writings  of  Papias, 
and,  thereby,  to  reveal  the  near  relation  in  which  Irenaeus  stood  to  the 
conditions  of  the  first  century.  Out  of  this  more  careful  study  of  those 
relations  emerges  the  son  of  Zebedee  as  the  only  probable  author  of  Johan- 
nine writings  from  which  the  fourth  gospel  was  later  compiled. 

In  somewhat  similar  manner,  the  confident,  but  unconvincing,  argu- 
ment of  Zahn  has  been  supplemented  and  his  finding  for  the  oral  character 
of  the  presbyter  testimony  has  been  put  on  a  stable  foundation.  This  has 
been  done  by  recognizing  that  his  treatment,  like  that  of  Lightfoot,  is 
insufficient,  and  by  taking  into  account  the  very  important  item  of  pres- 
byter testimony  in  the  letter  to  Florinus. 

Incidentally,  the  sweeping  conclusion  of  de  Boor  and  particularly  that 
of  Bacon  and  those  who  agree  with  these  writers,  that  the  son  of  Zebedee 
was  an  early  martyr,  has  been  found  to  be  unwarranted  in  view  of  the  best 
evidence  bearing  on  the  question.  The  symbolic  language  of  the  New 
Testament  and  the  "silence"  of  Ignatius  and  others  of  his  time  have  been 
sufficiently,  or  even  better,  explained  on  the  theory  that  John  lived  to  old  age 
in  Asia  Minor. 

The  conclusions  which  have  been  reached  may  be  summarized  for 
convenience  and  somewhat  more  in  detail  as  follows: 

508 


IRENAEUS   TESTIMONY    TO    THE    FOUBTH   GOSPEL  59 

1.  Irenaeus'  quotations  from  the  fourth  gospel,  or  references  to  it, 
are  sufficient  to  furnish  a  probability  that  he  had  the  gospel  in  substantially 
the  same  form  in  which  we  have  it  (pp.  10-16). 

2.  His  use  of  the  language  of  the  gospel,  generally,  was  quite  free,  and 
his  manner  of  attributing  it  to  different  persons  or  sources  was  interestingly 
diversified  (pp.  11-13).     These  phenomena,  together  with  the  fact  that  he 
sometimes  placed  a  higher  estimate  on  oral  gospel  testimony  than  on  the 
written  gospel  (pp.  54-56),  and  his  sparing  use  of  the  gospel  outside  of  the 
prologue  (p.  12),  indicate    how  highly  he   regarded  the  oral  accounts  of 
Jesus'  life  and  teachings  which  had  come  down  to  him. 

3.  The  testimony  which  Irenaeus  referred  to  the  presbyters  is  oral 
throughout  (p.  50)  and  corroborates  the  closeness  of  Irenaeus'  relation  to 
the  apostles,  which  he  sometimes  asserted   but  oftener  assumed  (p.  57). 
One  of  these  presbyters  was  Polycarp  (p.  48).     One  of  the  unnamed  pres- 
byters was  of    the  second  generation  from  the  apostles  (p.  47)  and  yet 
had  evidently  lived  earlier  than  Irenaeus.     Other  men,  in  similar  ways, 
must  have  overlapped  the  period  between  the  chief  activities  of  Polycarp 
and  the  beginning  of  the  manhood  of  Irenaeus  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  body 
to  the  traditions  which  have  come  down  to  us  chiefly  in  the  name  of  Poly- 
carp (pp.  51-53).  Such  men  were  in  an  excellent  position  to  know  the  state 
of  affairs  and  the  opinions  during  the  first  half  of  the  second  century  and 
to  be  the  means  of  the  transmission  of  these  to  the  days  of  Irenaeus. 

4.  The  testimony  of  Irenaeus,  therefore,  though  not  a  critical  estimate 
of  the  testimony  of  his  predecessors,  and  though  coming  from  the  last  quarter 
of  the  second  century,  is  substantially  the  testimony  of  Polycarp  and  men 
associated  with  him,  testimony  which  these  men  were  accustomed  to  give 
during  the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  or  even,  in  the  case  of  Polycarp's 
younger  contemporaries,  over  into  the  second  half  of  the  century  (pp.  24  f .). 

5.  Polycarp  was  a  man  some  thirty  years  of  age  at  the  close  of  the  first 
century  (p.  26).     He   had    associated  with  other  apostolic  men    as  well 
as  John  (p.  28).     Accordingly,  he  was  in  a  position  to  know  accurately  of 
Christian  affairs  at  the  close  of  the  first  century,  of  the  men  who  were  then 
in  Asia,  of  the  accounts  of  their  lives  then  current,  and  of  their  teachings. 
Out  of  such  a  situation  developed  the  Polycarp-Irenaeus  testimony  con- 
cerning John  and  the  Johannine  gospel.     This  testimony  knows  only  one 
John  of   apostolic   times   other  than  John  the  Baptist  and  John  Mark 
(pp.  17,  30).     This  one  John,  though  he  is  not  specifically  called  the  son  of 
Zebedee,  was  certainly  the  man  whom  we  call  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

6.  Irenaeus,  Florinus,  Polycarp,  and  those  of  their  time,  i.  e.,  back  to 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  appear  to  have  been  familiar  with 

509 


60  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

written  Johanno-Asian  accounts  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus,  with 
which  Polycarp's  oral  accounts  used  to  be  compared  (pp.  31-38),  and  the 
people  of  those  days  knew  no  other  author  of  these  than  the  son  of  Zebedee 
(p.  39).  This  was  the  only  view  current  until  after  Irenaeus'  time,  and 
this  unanimity  of  opinion  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  Johannine  gospel 
helps  to  explain  why  so  little  is  extant  in  the  literature  of  the  second  century 
concerning  the  authorship  (p.  39). 

7.  While  we  are  warranted,  on  the  basis  of  the  Irenaeus  testimony,  in 
saying  that  Irenaeus  had  the  fourth  gospel  in  substantially  the  same  form 
in  which  it  has  come  to  us,  we  are  not  warranted  by  that  testimony  in  say- 
ing that  the  gospel  was  in  existence  in  its  present  form  at  the  close  of  the 
first  century.  As  far  as  Irenaeus'  testimony  can  assure  us,  the  Johanno- 
Asian  accounts  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  at  the  time  of  Polycarp 
were  in  the  form  of  separate  and  brief  narratives,  or  booklets  (pp.  35-37). 


510 


APPENDIX 

RESULTING    HYPOTHESIS    FOR   THE   JOHANNINE    QUESTIONS 

Lest  this  conclusion  should  leave  indefinite  the  meaning  which  it  gives 
for  the  Johannine  questions  as  a  whole,  I  venture  to  suggest  the  general 
Johannine  hypothesis  to  which  it  leads.  Its  most  important  elements  are 
the  following: 

1.  John  did  not  write  a  single  and  complete  account  of  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Jesus.     Perhaps  he  was  never  inclined  to  do  so.     He  did,  how- 
ever, in  connection  with  his  ministry  in  Asia,  either  write  short  accounts,  or, 
perhaps  still  more  probably,  allow  some  one  of  his  disciples  to  write  such 
accounts  of  what  he  used  to  say  to  the  people.     These  accounts  were  fre- 
quently short  sermons  founded  on  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus.     As  such,  they 
were  not  intended  to  be  mere  history  but  rather  interpretations  of  Jesus, 
sometimes  in  allegorical  form,  for  the  people  to  whom  John  spoke. 

2.  Those  written  sermons,  or  booklets,  were  treasured  up  even  before  the 
death  of  John,  but,  naturally,  they  came  to  be  prized  more  highly  after  his 
death.     The  apparent  references  to  the  fourth  gospel  in  the  literature  up 
to  the  time  of  Justin  may  reflect  the  existence  of  these  booklets  and  indicate 
the  place  which  they  possessed  for  the  Christians  who  knew  them,  who 
were  probably  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Christians  of  Asia,  at  least. 
In  this  form  they  were  not  thought  of  as  a  gospel. 

3.  Somewhere  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  some  one — 
Polycarp  is  perhaps  as  naturally  thought  of  as  anyone — conceived  the  idea 
of  combining  such  of  these  sermons  as  were  suitable  to  the  purpose  into  a 
gospel  which  would  present  aspects  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  supple- 
mentary to  the  aspects  of  his  life  and  teaching  portrayed  in  the  gospels 
already  in  circulation.     This  editorial  work  was  performed  and  the  book 
duly  published. 

4.  This  gospel,  thus  produced  out  of  material  which  was  already  recog- 
nized as  John's  and  needing  no  explanation   of  its  origin,  was  at  once 
accepted  and  soon  took  its  place  with  those  which  had  received  their  current 
form  much  earlier.     If  we  had  all  the  correspondence  of  the  time  and  notes 
of  all  the  oral  news  which  then  passed  among  the  Christians,  we  should 
probably  find  some  reference  to  such  a  course  of  events  for  the  Johannine 
writings.     As  conditions  were,  such  material  was  too  unimportant  and  too 
little  thought  of  to  warrant  its  preservation.     This  acceptance  and  use  of 
511]  61 


62  HISTORICAL    AND    LINGUISTIC    STUDIES 

the  Johannine  gospel  naturally  occurred  first  in  Asia.  In  view  of  Irenaeus' 
close  relationship  with  Asia,  a  copy  went  to  him  promptly,  and  he  accepted 
it  without  hesitation  as  the  connected  form  of  the  gospel  which  he  had  heard 
from  Polycarp  and  the  collection  of  the  Johannine  writings  which  he  had 
known  in  his  youth.  If  the  gospel  was  published  about  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Polycarp,  at  his  suggestion,  and,  on  the  part  of  those  who  carried 
out  his  wish,  as  a  memorial  treasury,  perhaps,  of  the  Johannine  tradition 
which  no  one  else  so  directly  preserved,  it  would  have  reached  Irenaeus 
while  he  was  still  a  young  man.  In  that  case,  he  would  have  felt  the  least 
possible  cause  for  giving  any  special  attention  to  the  detailed  events  through 
which  the  gospel  arose  or  for  hesitating  to  use  it  as  John's  gospel.  Through- 
out the  Christian  world  it  was  soon  recognized  as  the  written  form  of  the 
story  of  Jesus  which  was  already  so  well  known  through  the  oral  tradition 
of  the  presbyters  and,  in  Asia  at  least,  through  the  booklets  out  of  which  it 
had  been  compiled. 

5.  Some  of  the  Johannine  sermons  were  on  other  subjects  than  the  life 
of  Jesus.     The  first  Johannine  letter  is  to  be  explained  from  such  fragments. 
The  second  and  third  may  have  arisen  in  this  way,  but  perhaps  the  proba- 
bility is  against  this  theory.     They  are  more  likely  to  be  actual  letters  from 
John. 

6.  The  Apocalypse,  like  all  other  apocalypses,  is  a  pseudonymous  work. 
Its  author  availed  himself  of  the  fame  of  John  in  Asia  and  perhaps  made 
use  of  some  of  the  Johannine  material.     He  published  his  work  in  Rome, 
or  at  least  in  the  West,  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  perhaps 
under  cover  of  the  appearance  of  the  gospel.     Under  these  conditions, 
together  with  the  hospitable  apocalyptic  atmosphere  of  the  time,  its  ready 
acceptance  in  the  West  but  much  slower  acceptance  in  the  East  was  a 
natural  phenomenon.     By  the  time  Justin  wrote  his  Dialogue  it  had  gained 
sufficient  recognition  in  the  West  to  be  referred  to  as  corroborative  testimony 
(chap.  81).     Irenaeus,  like  others  of  his  time  in  the  West,  accepted  the 
book  without  hesitation. 


512 


INDEX  OF  NAMES  AND  SUBJECTS 


Abbreviations,  9,  10 

Alogi,  39 

Anicetus,  25 

Apocalypse,  the,  31,  62 

Apostle,  Irenaeus'  use,  20-22 

Apostolic  times,  extent,  17 

Asia,  communication  with  the  west,  25,  53 

Bacon,  B.  W.,  30,  41,  50 

Cerinthus,  39,  40 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  13 
Conybeare,  F.  C.,  55 

De  Boor,  30 
"Disciple,"  the,  20 
Documents  and  tradition,  52 
Drummond,  James,  42 


50 

Epiphanius,  39 
Eusebius,  24,  31 

Florinus,  letter  to,  26-29 
Fourth  gospel  — 

Work  of  John  of  Asia,  17 

In  time  of  Polycarp,  33-38 

Origin  for  Irenaeus,  37 

Compared  with  presbyter  testimony,  54 

Date  of  compilation,  36,  61 

ypacpais,  rcus,  31-39 

Harnack,  A.,  27,  42,  43,  47,  50 
Heresies,  The,  a  tract  for  the  times,  51 

Ignatius,  31,  53 
Irenaeus,  use  of  gospel,  12 

—  Looseness  of  style,  39 

—  Theological  development,  15 

—  Terminology  that  of  New  Testament, 


— Relation  to  Polycarp's  testimony,  26,  40 
— Communication  with  Asia,  25,  29,  51, 

53 
— How  to  be  understood,  52 

Jackson,  H.  L.,  19 

Jameses,  did  Irenaeus  confuse?  22 

Jesus'  age,  45,  54 

John  of  Asia,  apostle,  18,  23,  29,  30 

— And  Johannine  writings,  31,  39,  58 

John,  gospel  of.     See  Fourth  gospel 

Johannine  letters,  62 

John  Mark,  17 

John  the  Baptist,  17,  20 

Justin  Martyr,  34,  62 

Lightfoot,  J.  B.,  42,  43 
Luke,  gospel  of,  24 

Monnier,  21 
Oncken,  Johann,  52 

Papias,  31,  32,  49 

Polycarp,  25,  27,  28,  31,  34,  48 

Presbyter  testimony,  the,  41-51 

— Superior  to  gospels,  54 

— Compared  with  letters  to  Victor  and 

Florinus,  55 

Presbyters'  names,  why  not  given,  53 
Prologue,  use  by  Irenaeus,  12 

Scott,  C.  A.,  19 
Scott,  E.  F.,  5 
Swete,  H.  B.,  19 

Trajan,  17,  18 
Victor,  letter  to,  24 
Zahn,  T.,  41  ff.,  50 


513] 


63 


INDEX  OF  PASSAGES  IN  IRENAEUS 


PAGE 

PAGE 

PAGE 

I.  p.    2d 

42 

3.  ii.  8 

54 

4-  8.  3& 

22 

I-  3-  5b 

17 

3-  ii.  9c 

21 

4.  20.  II& 

13 

i.  J3-  3^ 

42 

3-  12.  3c 

21 

4-  25.  3& 

9 

i.  15.  6 

42 

3-  12.  5a 

19 

4.   26.   2C 

21 

I.  30.    I2& 

17 

3.  12.  8a 

21 

4-  27-32       42,  44,  47, 

50 

2.   9.    1C 

21 

3.  12.  ioa 

21 

4-  33-  8a 

21 

2.    22 

2O 

3-  12.  i5c 

21,   22 

4.  41.   2C                           42, 

50 

2.    22.   3 

15 

3.  14.  ic 

17 

2.  22.  5c  17,  42  ff.,  53, 

56 

3-  16.  i 

42 

5.  5.  ic                42,  44, 
5.  17.  46 

47 

3.  i.  ic     13,21,24,37, 

55 

3-  J9-  3C 

55 

5-  17-  4^ 

42 

3-  3-  3^ 

21 

3-  21.  3C 

19 

5.   20.   I 

21 

3.  3.  4          17,  18,  28, 

53 

3.  21.  4a 

21 

5.  28.  4C 

53 

3.  5.  ic                     18, 

21 

3-  23.  sc 

42 

5.  30.  ic              42,  44, 

47 

3-  10.  3                      13, 

17 

5-  33-  3&             42,  44, 

46 

3-  ii.  i                     39, 

40 

4.  p.  2b 

42 

5-  33-  4                     49, 

53 

3.  ii.  4c 

20 

4.  4.  2b 

42 

5-  36.  i                     42, 

44 

3-  ii.  4-9 

42 

4-  4-  3& 

17 

5.  36.  2a 

54 

INDEX 

OF  NEW  TESTAMENT 

TEXTS 

Matt,     i  :  1  8 

21 

John  8:56,  57 

54 

John  19:  26,  27 

20 

28:19 

55 

chap.  10 

13 

20:2,  3,  4,  8 

20 

Luke  1:35 

21 

13:25 

13 

chap.  21 

13 

John     i  :  18 

13 

14:2 

54 

21:7,  20,  23,  24 

20 

3:18-21 

13 

14:6 

19 

8:44 

13 

18:15,  16 

20 

[514 


•n97& 
mTar-^V-" 


LD  21-100m-7,'40  (6936s) 


YC  406 


r 


1  7816 

a 

1,4 


